Air Power And Colonial Control: The Royal Air Force, 1919-1939 0719029600, 9780719029608

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Air Power And Colonial Control: The Royal Air Force, 1919-1939
 0719029600, 9780719029608

Table of contents :
Contents
List of illustrations
General Introduction
Preface
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Note on Transliteration and Technical Terms
Part I
1 The origins of air policing
The emergence of independent air power
The Frontier and Somaliland 1919-20
Conclusion
2 Iraq and the survival of the RAF1920-25
The air control debate 1920-22
Air control in action 1922-25
Conclusion
3 The extension of air control
Great Britain and Ireland
Palestine
India
South-West Arabia
Africa
Conclusion
4 The limits of air substitution
The Air Ministry and ground forces
Tactical co-operation
Substitution and the navy
Conclusion
Part II
5 The geographical environment of air policing
The long arm of the state
Time and space
Air power in a resistant medium
Conclusion
6 Indigenous responses to air policing
Expectations
From terror to adaptation
Resistance
Conclusion
7 The technical dimension
Air strategy
Technology
Training and doctrine
Conclusion
8 Imperial politics and the role of force
Limited and unlimited uses of force
Criticisms of air policing
Air policing and air disarmament
Conclusion
9 Comparisons
Air power in Morocco and Syria
The Italian Empire in Africa
Conclusion
General Conclusion
Notes
Preface
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Biographical Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

— STUDIES IN—

IMPERIALISM general editor John M. MacKenzie Established in the belief that imperialism as a cultural phenomenon had as significant an effect on the dominant as on the subordinate societies, Studies in Imperialism seeks to develop the new socio-cultural approach which has emerged through cross-disciplinary work on popular culture, media studies, art history, the study of education and religion, sports history and children's literature. The cultural emphasis embraces studies of migration and race, while the older political, and constitutional, economic and military concerns will never be far away. It will incorporate comparative work on European and American empire-building, with the chronological focus primarily, though not exclusively, on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when these cultural exchanges were most powerfully at work.

endpapers

The Middle East between the two world wars

--- STUDIES IN---

IM PERIA LIS/^ Propaganda a nd em pire The manipulation of British public opinion, 1880-1960 John M. MacKenzie Im p eria lism a n d p op u la r cu ltu re ed. John M. MacKenzie E p h e m e ra l vistas The Expositions Universelles, Great Exhibitions and World's Fairs, 1851-1939 Paul Greenhalgh €A t d u ty's c a ll’ A study in obsolete patriotism W. J. Reader Im ages o f the a rm y The military in British art, 1815-1914 J. W. M. Hichberger T h e em pire o f n ature Hunting, conservation and British imperialism John M. MacKenzie ‘Benefits b e sto w e d ’ { Education and British imperialism ed. J. A. Mangan Im p e ria l m e d icin e a nd in d ig en ou s so cieties ed. David Arnold Im p eria lism a n d ju v e n ile literatu re ed. Jeffrey Richards A sia in W estern fictio n ed. Robin W. Winks and James R. Rush M a k in g im p eria l m en ta lities Socialisation and British imperialism ed. J. A. Mangan E m p ire a n d se x u a lity The British experience Ronald M. Hyam Im p eria lism a nd the n a tu ra l w o rld ed. John M. MacKenzie Em ig ra n ts a nd em pire British settlement in the Dominions between the wars ed. Stephen Constantine R ev o lu tio n a nd em pire English politics and the American colonies in the seventeenth century Robert M. Bliss A ir p o w er a nd co lo n ia l co n tro l The Royal Air Force 1919-39 David E. Omissi

Air power and colonial control THE R O YA L AIR F O R C E 1 9 1 9 - 1 9 3 9

D avid E. O m issi

MANCHESTER U N IV ER SITY PRESS Manchester and New York Distributed exclusively in the USA and Canada byST. M A R T I N ' S P R E S S

Copyright © David £. Omissi 1990 Published by Manchester University Press Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA Distributed exclusively in the USA and Canada by St. Martin's Press, Inc. 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA British Library cataloguing in publication data Omissi, David £. Air power and colonial control: the Royal Air Force 1919-1939. - (Studies in imperialism) 1. Great Britain. Royal Air Force, history I. Title 358.400941 Library of Congress cataloging in publication data Omissi, David E., 1960Air power and colonial control: the Royal Air Force 1919-1939 / David £. Omissi. p. c.m - (Studies in imperialism) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-7190-2960-0 1. Great Britain. Royal Air Force - History. 2. Great Britain - Colonies Administration - History - 20th century. 3. Aeronautics in police work Great Britain - Colonies - History - 20th century. 4. Great Britain - History, Military - 20th century. I. Title. II. Series: Studies in imperialism (Manchester, England) DA89.5.047 1990 358.4'00941'09171241—dc20 90-40817 ISBN 0 7190 2960 0 hardback

Typeset in Trump Mediaeval by Koinoinia Ltd, Manchester Printed in Great Britain by Bell & Bain Limited, Glasgow

CONTENTS

List of illustrations — page v ii General introduction — v iii Preface — ix Acknowledgem ents — x ii List of abbreviations — x iv N ote on transliteration and technical term s — x v

Parti 1 The origins of air policing The emergence of independent air power The Frontier and Som aliland 1919-20 C onclusion

page 2 4 8 16

2 Iraq and the survival of the RAF 1920-25 The air control debate 1920-22 Air control in action 1922-25 Conclusion

18 19

29 37

3 The extension of air control Great Britain and Ireland Palestine India South-West Arabia Africa Conclusion

39 40 43 47 50 52 58

4 The lim its of air substitution The Air M inistry and ground forces T actical co-operation Substitution and the navy C onclusion

60 60 70

76 82

Part II 5 The geographical environm ent of air policing The long arm of the state T im e and space Air power in a resistant m edium C onclusion

[ v]

84 85

93 98 106

CONTENTS

6 Indigenous responses to air policing Expectations From terror to adaptation R esistance Conclusion

107 109 112 122 132

7 The technical dim ension Air strategy Technology Training and doctrine Conclusion

134 135 138 145 148

8 Im perial politics and the role of force Lim ited and unlim ited uses of force C riticism s of air policing Air policing and air disarm am ent Conclusion

150 151 162 177 181

9 Com parisons Air power in M orocco and Syria The Italian Empire in Africa C onclusion

184 185 197 208

General conclusion — 210 N otes — 215 Biographical notes — 237 Bibliography — 245 Index — 255

[ vi ]

ILLUSTRATIONS Maps 1 The Middle East between the two world wars 2 North-East Africa 3 The Sudan: vegetation

front and back endpapers S3 87

F ig U I 6 S after p. 82, between Parts I and I I

1 Bombs falling on the village of Al-Neija, Aden Protectorate, September 1937 2 Vickers Victoria IQ bomber-transport of No. 70 Squadron above the River Tigris, Baghdad 3 The Vickers Vildebeeste 4 Repairs to the front axle of an armoured car from No. 1 Company, RAF, Iraqi desert 5 A flying demonstration by a Fairey DIF 'to impress the natives', Tanga Airfield, Tanganyika, 1932 6 Dug-outs built as protection against British bombing, Dala, Aden Protect­ orate

[vii]

GENERAL IN T R O D U C T IO N

After the First World War, the rulers of the British Empire faced new problems of incorporation and 'pacification'. With the acquisition of the mandated territories from the defeated German and Ottoman Empires, the Empire reached its greatest extent at a time when Britain was weakened by war and was facing a period of rapid economic decline. It was thus essential to find and successfully utilise a cheaper means of maintaining the 'imperial peace'. After some hesi­ tation and experimentation, air policing seemed to satisfy the need. This new technology offered opportunities to suppress dissidents by aerial means, some­ times as a progagandist and psychological device, but primarily by bombing. Historians have recently become interested in the extent to which technology lowered the costs of imperial expansion and thus served to reduce financial resistance to new commitments. Air policing appeared to offer just such technical opportunities in environments which posed severe difficulties for the more traditional and terrestrial work of the military. The problems of terrain and climate associated with deserts and mountains - the most difficult of policing contexts - were to be found not only in the new mandated territories, but also in other regions where populations had proved intractable, for example on the North West Frontier of India, in the Sudan and the Horn of Africa. Air policing was used in many other colonial possessions, in a variety of empires, but its prime and most effective incidence occurred in the crescent of territory from north-eastern Africa, through the Middle East, to north-western India. In this strikingly original study, David Omissi examines the origins, charac­ ter and effectiveness of air policing and its role not only in offering a cheaper means of 'pacification' in the inter-war years, but also in securing the survival of the Royal Air Force as an independent service. He identifies its significance in specific geographical contexts, its effects on the mentality of imperial admin­ istrators and air force personnel together with the reactions and responses of the people against whom it was directed. He illuminates the potentialities and limitations of the new aerial technology by considering the characteristics of the flying machines and the problems of the men who flew them. His work provides the first full-length treatment of air policing and makes important contributions to the history of colonial resistance and its suppression, to the relative signifi­ cance of technology in the maintenance of imperial rule, and to the origins and development of the RAF. It also clarifies the debates of politicians and service commanders about the application and relative success of aerial deployment in civil unrest. This book should find a wide readership among those interested in the history of the British Empire and of the Middle East, of the politics of armed forces after the First World War, and of the RAF. J.M.M.

PR EF A CE

Between the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 and the start of the next European war in 1939, the most important active role performed by the RAF was that of policing the Empire. This book is the first extensive study of that task. The presence of the air force was felt in almost every territory under British sway. In colonies, mandates and protectorates, from Ireland to Africa, and above all in India and the Middle East, the Royal Air Force tried to intimidate, to bomb and to machine gun dissident subjects into submission to imperial power. Often the air force was successful: occasionally it failed. But measured by the distribution of its squadrons, the policing function was as significant as the defence of the British Isles against air attack: in 1926 about half of all RAF front­ line units were stationed overseas. In Britain, too, the air force intervened in the industrial class struggle. The discovery of an independent peacetime function, that of policing the Empire on the cheap, helped ensure the survival of the third independent service during the lean financial years of the 1920s. The deserts, swamps and mountains on the margins of Empire (along with their inhabitants) were exploited as a 'splendid training ground' by British bombers. Air Staff doctrine was partly formed by the experiences of Empire, and the particular needs of policing shaped the design of some British military aircraft. The terrifying force which reduced German cities to ruins in the Second World War surely owed something to that which had destroyed Arab and Indian villages in the years of 'peace'. Air policing draws together a number of themes that are currently of wider interest to imperial and to military historians. They include the relationship between technology and strategies of colonial control; the impact of imperial 'small wars' on the military structures of the European power? the responses of African and Asian peoples to new weapons? the use of violence to crush internal dissent and the ethical questions this raised.1 Yet despite its historiographical relevance, historians have so far acknowl­ edged the significance of air policing mainly in asides. Understandably enough, the strategic bombing offensive dominates air force historiography? but there are a few notable exceptions to this general trend. Montgomery Hyde's massive work, now showing its age, still repays careful study.2 A search through the journals of aerospace, imperial and African history will uncover several articles which deal in part or whole with the air force as a weapon of internal security. David Killingray has produced a thought-provoking and well-documented ac­ count of air power in British colonial Africa (in many respects the starting point for this study)? Jaffna Cox has summarized the existing published material on air control in Iraq? and Roger Beaumont has briefly surveyed air policing over the whole Empire.3 Charles Townshend has contributed an outstanding paper to one of the several festschrifts for A. J. P. Taylor.4 Some regional studies attempt to locate the advent of repressive air power in a specific geographical context.

PR EF A C E

Books on Iraq by Peter Sluglett, on Aden by R. J. Gavin and on Somaliland by I. M. Lewis are perhaps the best of this type.5 General surveys of Empire sometimes measure the contribution of the air force, if in a somewhat cursory manner.6 But the overall pattern has been to regard air policing either as a footnote to domestic service politics or as a prelude to the gigantic air battles of 1939 to 1945: Malcolm Smith's erudite study of British air strategy between the wars is an example of this tendency.7 There is no single volume devoted to air policing and this work therefore closes a distinct historiographical gap. The neglect of historians cannot be explained by the want of primary evidence. There are more official documents directly or obliquely relevant to air policing than could be read in a lifetime, or even in several lifetimes. The pri­ vate papers of dozens of leading air force figures, besides those of army officers and imperial bureaucrats, have some bearing on the matter. The contemporary air and military journals contain a wealth of articles about the controversial new role of the junior service. Published memoirs often have entertaining chapters recalling years of service in Africa, 'Mespot' or India. I could do no more than sample these fascinating sources, and have consulted only about a thousand files left in the Public Record Office by the Departments most directly concerned. These have formed the basis of my conclusions, amplified by selective soundings in other archives. If this work was ever to see completion, I had to draw some line, more or less arbitrary, beyond which I would not venture. The very scale of the evidence falsifies any claim to completeness, and there remains ample territory for further exploration - every survey indicates additional points of de­ parture. Besides locating myself in the space created by other writings, I have brought a number of broader questions to bear upon the sources. These questions, and their findings, have been organized into two main parts. The first part of the book (Chapters One to Four) seeks to locate the role played by air policing in the bureaucratic struggles fought between the British services in the 1920s and 1930s. All three services faced severe financial constraints for much of the period under discussion, and the Royal Air Force, as the newest and smallest, was particularly vulnerable to attack. The War Office and the Admi­ ralty several times joined forces in attempts to secure the abolition of the independent air force and the Air Ministry. I f is the contention of this book that the air force survived largely because it could police the Middle Eastern mandates more cheaply than the army. But the air force not only survived, it expanded its policing activities into farther regions of the Empire. Chapters Three and Four discuss how the geographical and operational limits of this expansion were reached. The second part of the book (Chapters Five to Nine) measures the strengths and limitations of imperial power as exercised through the media of biplane and bomb. One chapter discusses air policing in relation to geographical space, showing how the bomber extended the reach of the imperial state into marginal areas, but also emphasizing that air policing was frequently hampered by a hostile environment. Policing is an interactive relationship between the police and the policed, and Chapter Six reconstructs, from the limited evidence available, the history of those people subjected to police bombing. No study of

[ x]

PR EFA CE

the air force can ignore the technical dimension, and the next chapter assesses the impact of air policing upon the strategy, technology, training and doctrine of the RAP. The use of bombers as a means of repression raised some important and awkward ethical questions; these have been examined in Chapter Eight, using the doctrine of 'minimum necessary force' as a yardstick. The last chapter compares the British use of repressive air power with that of various European imperial states, most notably France and Italy in Africa and the Levant. Besides the questions they address themselves, the first four chapters provide the narrative and descriptive context essential to locate the themes discussed in Part II. The architecture of this scheme may well be flawed, but whatever its conceptual failings I hope its component parts have been crafted to a satisfactory standard. D. E. O. London

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Every work of historical production is in some sense a collective enterprise, and it is my pleasurable duty to acknowledge the help of scholars, friends and institutions. The thesis on which this book was based was ably supervised by Michael Dockrill, whose incisive criticisms were invariably tempered by a seemingly endless fund of goodwill. I was encouraged and advised by Lawrence Freedman, John Gooch, David Killingray and Peter Marshall at a time when all seemed 'dark and doubtful'. My interest in imperial and African history was inspired by the teaching of John MacKenzie; and his friendship, hospitality and constructive criticism have been valued ever since. Tony Henderson and Dominic Omissi each read the entire typescript and discussed my work with me countless times. Paul Addison, Stephen Church, Monika Göbel, Tim Hitchcock, Maria-Sophia Quine and Tim Wales read individual chapters and made many fruitful sugges­ tions. My colleagues during my short stay at Edinburgh University were always helpful, especially Tom Barron, Ian Wei and Paul Bailey. One of the pleasures of working at the Public Record Office is the opportunity it provides for the exchange of ideas with other scholars: the searching questions and impressive erudition of John Ferris and David French exposed my own ignorance and encouraged me to greater efforts. Joshua Landis discussed the French Mandate in Syria with me several times, more for my benefit than his. Jeff Rudd generously shared his reseach on Transjordan and Palestine with me, and Douglas Johnson did the same for the Sudan. David Arnold gave me unpublished work and some contemporary articles, and wrote a brief critique of my entire project from which I learned much. Several people drew my attention to source material I might otherwise have missed: among them were Tony Gorst, Keith Jeffery, Nick Cull, Jane Platt, Charles Smith and Wesley Wark. Alison Pilz, Bemie Branfield, Rob Procter and Paul Temple had to live not only with me but with air policing: I admire their endurance on both counts. Charlotte Devereux read some of the typscript and sustained me in countless other ways. I greatly benefited from the chance to present my work for discussion at seminars and conferences: in particular the Imperial History and Military History Seminars at the Institute of Historical Research; the Tuesday Club at the London School of Economics; the Philosophy of History Seminar at SOAS, London; and the Imperial Policing Conference held at Birkbeck College, London in May 1988. For this I am grateful to the participants (too numerous to mention by name) and to the organizers, among whom were David Anderson, Brian Bond, Freda Harcourt, Scott Lucas, Andrew Porter and Brian Holden Reid. As a postgraduate I was given every encouragement by the Department of War Studies at Kings' College, London. The staff at the Public Record Office in Kew, the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, the Imperial War Museum and the RAF Museum at Hendon were most helpful. All intellectual life has a material

[xii]

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

basis, and I am grateful to the States of Jersey without whose funds this project could not have been undertaken. The agreeable surroundings of Nuffield College, Oxford, eased the task of checking the typescript and proofs. Advice is there to be ignored, and if I have failed to make best use of the help I have received, the fault is entirely my own.

ABBREVIATIONS

AA ACC ADGB AI AIO AIR AMSR AOC AOC-in-C AS BEF CAB CAS CGS CID CIGS CNS CO

cos

CP DC AS DCIGS DDOI DMOI FO GOC GOC-in-C GS HC IDC JRUSI KAR MAP MEF MFC OC PRO QMG RA RAF RAFQ RFC SASO SDF SHAEF WO

anti-aircraft Armoured Car Company Air Defence of Great Britain Air Intelligence Air Intelligence Officer Air Ministry and Records, Public Record Office Air Member for Supply and Research Air Officer Commanding Air Officer Commanding in Chief Air Staff British Expeditionary Force Cabinet Office and Records, Public Record Office Chief of the Air Staff Chief of the General Staff, India Committee of Imperial Defence Chief of the Imperial General Staff Chief of the Naval Staff (First Sea Lord) Colonial Office and Records, Public Record Office Chiefs of Staff Committee Cabinet Paper Deputy Chief of the Air Staff Deputy Chief of the Imperial General Staff Deputy Director of Operations and Intelligence Director of Military Operations and Intelligence, War Office Foreign Office and Records, Public Record Office General Officer Commanding General Officer Commanding in Chief General Staff High Commissioner Imperial Defence College Journal of the Royal United Services Institute King's African Rifles Ministry of Aircraft Production Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force Microfilm Copies, RAF Museum, Hendon Officer Commanding Public Record Office, Kew, London Quartermaster-General Royal Artillery Royal Air Force Royal Air Force Quarterly Royal Flying Corps Senior Air Staff Officer Sudan Defence Force Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force War Office and Records, Public Record Office

[xiv]

NOTE ON T R A N S L I T E R A T I O N AND T E C H N I C A L TERMS There has been a recent tendency among historians of the Middle East to transliterate as precisely as possible, with full diacritical marks, all words originally written in the Arabic alphabet. This tendency will no doubt be welcomed by the specialist, but it must be deplored by the general reader for whom this book has been written. I have omitted all diacritics, in the belief that they distract the non-specialist and can be mentally supplied by the expert. I have transliterated each word in only one way, and have used standard English spellings where these exist, but beyond this I have not tried to be consistent. A book about so technical a subject as the Royal Air Force must inevitably use some technical terms, but I have tried to keep these to the absolute minimum. Three, however, have been regularly employed. Air policing means the use of aircraft to uphold the internal security of a state. Air control occurred when the Air Ministry assumed responsibility for the defence of a particular region of the Empire. In the period discussed in this book, air control took place only in Palestine, Iraq, Transjordan, and the Aden Protectorate, although it was proposed for numerous other territories. Air substitution occurred when aircraft replaced other forms of military force in imperial defence. The use of aircraft instead of ground troops to police a territory was one form of substitution, and the proposed use of bombers instead of heavy guns to defend Singapore would have been another. My use of these terms corresponds to that employed, fairly consistently, by the Air Staff.

[XV]

IN M E M O R Y O F M Y M O T H E R

Alice O m issi 1930-85

[xvi]

PART I

C H A P T E R ONE

The origins of air policing

European expansion overseas alw ays owed som ething to technical power. The great explorations in the sixteenth and seventeenth centu­ ries could not have taken place without certain vital m aritim e technolo­ gies. But before the third quarter of the nineteenth century, European armed forces did not posssess a decisive technical superiority over their African and Asian opponents. U ntil the 1850s the m ain weapon of the European infantryman w as the smoothbore, m uzzle-loading m usket. Cheap to produce and easy to obtain, its sim ple m echanism s could be copied or repaired by African village sm iths, and in any case its poor performance did not put soldiers armed only with bows or spears at a hopeless disadvantage. Ineffective at more than two hundred paces, the m usket could fire perhaps once per m inute on a dry day and m ight not fire at all in heavy rain. European arm ies won their battles with superior drill, discipline and tactics, not w ith superior weapons. Napoleon Bonaparte won such striking victories in his Egyptian cam paign m ainly because he used large divisional squares, upon whose dense and well-ordered ranks the charges of the M am eluk horsemen broke in vain. Opponents whose tactics were more subtle m ight give European m usketeers a harder fight, as the heavy French losses in Algeria from 1830 to 1857 bear witness. Furthermore, European m ethods could be im itated. By the early nineteenth century, the indigenous arm ies of India were becom ing harder to beat as the British system of drill w as widely copied; by the tim e of the Sikh wars in the 1840s, European and Indian arm ies were alm ost evenly matched. The technological im balance w as m uch greater at sea than on land, but sailing ships of the line could not easily use arterial rivers to penetrate the continental interior.1 The later nineteenth century saw dram atic changes. There w as a surge in the pace of European conquest overseas after a lull of several decades. D aniel Headrick has plausibly argued that this 'new im perial­

[ 2]

THE O R I G I N S OF AIR P O L I C I N G

ism ' w as generated in part by the technological revolution of the m id­ century which drastically tilted the technical balance in the European favour. He has identified three phases of technological im perialism : one of penetration during which the continental hinterlands were explored by Europeans, one of conquest during which indigenous polities were overthrown, and one of consolidation in which European dom inance w as imposed. T h is typology should not be rigidly applied. The pattem varied from region to region, and the categories blend and overlap. But from about 1850 technological change w as usually im portant and som etim es decisive in colonial expansion. Headrick has identified two m ain 'tools of penetration'. The first of these w as the steam ship. U nlike the sailing ship, the shallow-draft steam er could travel upstream w ith com parative ease. Iron vessels could even be dism antled, carried overland around cataracts or other obstacles and bolted together again on the far side. In the nineteenth century, steam ships carried explorers, m issionaries, soldiers and weapons along the giant rivers of Africa and A sia into the heartlands of continents unconquered by Europeans. Quinine w as the second 'tool of penetra­ tion'. European expansion into Africa had been defeated before the nineteenth century as m uch by disease as by Africans. The death rates for Europeans on the West African coast were horrific, and the region fully earned its reputation as the 'White M an's Grave'. The greatest killer w as m alaria. Although the exact causes of the disease remained unknown until the end of the nineteenth century, the prophylactic qualities of quinine were widely exploited from the 1840s. One more barrier to exploration w as thereby removed.2 During the phase of conquest, arm am ents were understandably of central importance. A revolution in firearms, which had far-reaching effects upon the m ilitary structures of im perialism , began in the m id­ nineteenth century. A whole series of inventions, from steel guns to tin cans, transform ed m ilitary activity and fundam entally altered the relations between dom inant and subordinate groups. From the 1850s basic changes in firearm s followed one another in rapid succession. In the space of about thirty-five years, the standard arm am ent of European regular infantry changed from the smoothbore m usket firing one round per m inute to the m agazine rifle firing ten. With the invention of sm okeless powder, concealed riflemen could open fire without betray­ ing their positions. These advances in weaponry enabled sm all European arm ies to break the m ilitary power of African polities. They m ultiplied the firepower of im perial forces and gained them an overwhelm ing advantage on the colonial battlefield.3 The m ost im portant of these changes in m ilitary technology w as the invention of the m achine gun. Handcranked multi-barrelled weapons

13]

AIR POWER AN D C O L O N I A L C O N T R O L

such as the G atling and the M itrailleuse had been around since the 1860s, but it w as not until 1884 that Hiram M axim patented the first autom atic weapon powered solely by the force of its own recoil. The m achine gun soon becam e the quintessential instrum ent of colonial conquest. It could be easily dism antled and carried on foot to remote regions, its reliable and rapid fire could beat off the m assed attacks of traditional African arm ies, and the tolerances of its delicate machinery were too fine to be copied by local sm iths.4 During the period of consolidation, in which the newly dom inant power turned to the exploitation of the conquered territory, technologi­ cal superiority also played its part. The developm ents in com m unica­ tions bound the colonies more closely to the m etropolis, subjected them to increased political control and exposed them to more intense eco­ nom ic exploitation. The railways of India brought British cotton goods to the m arkets of the subcontinent, extracted Indian raw m aterials for British factories and m oved im perial troops to suppress a rebellion or to guard a frontier. Railw ays were also built to bring raw m aterials from the African hinterland to the coast, from where they were shipped to Europe in steam ers. Large-scale irrigation projects increased the cultivated area in som e regions, m ost notably the Punjab, made yields m uch greater and increased revenue from taxation; telegraphs allowed shipping com pa­ nies to move goods to areas where prices were known to be high. Rapid com m unication w as one of the features which distinguished the 'new' im perialism from the old.5 The aeroplane w as a later development, but it too can be located within this typology of technological im perialism , of which the police bomber w as in som e respects the culm ination. The m ain concern of air policing w as w ith the consolidation of imperial power, but aircraft were used in all three technical phases. They penetrated territory little known to Europeans, m apped areas obscure to the im perial power, and - when equipped with floats - used rivers as routes of access to the interior. During the phase of conquest, bombers were used to crush 'primary' resistance m ovem ents: during the phase of consolidation they helped break rebellions against imperial rule. Once a region had been brought under nom inal European sovereignty, aircraft helped to extend state power to marginal areas of swampland, m ountains or deserts.

The emergence of independent air power The history of m ilitary flying predates that of air policing by more than a hundred years. H um an beings had ascended in balloons since the late eighteenth century; and during the wars of the French Revolution the aerial observation reports received by M arshal Jordan contributed to his

[ 4]

THE O R I G I N S OF AIR P O L I C I N G

decisive victory over the Austrian army at Fleurus in 1794. The m ilitary potential of ballooning w as also exploited in the Am erican C ivil and Franco-German conflicts, but it w as not until the 1880s that lighterthan-air vessels were regularly employed in colonial warfare. The French experimented w ith balloons at Tonkin in 1884, and the European arm ies used them during the Boer War and the Boxer Rebellion. The first m anned flight in a powered aeroplane - eagerly awaited - w as m ade in the United States in Decem ber 1903 by the brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright. T his w as hazardous and experim ental, but over the next decade the fragile craft rapidly improved in range, speed and reliablility. M ili­ tary critics were soon aware of the warlike applications of flight, particularly after Louis Blériot flew across the Channel in July 1909, and they began to discuss the possible use of aircraft in colonial conflicts. In D ecem ber 1909, for instance, M ajor Baden-Powell advised a lecture audience that airships would prove invaluable in 'savage warfare' because 'the m oral effect on an ignorant enemy would be great, and a few bom bs would cause serious panics'.6 Even before the outbreak of the European war in 1914 the early aeroplanes som etim es saw active m ilitary service. During their con­ quest of Libya in 1911-12, the Italians m ade wide use of Nieuport, Blériot, Deperdussin, Etrich and Farman m achines. The first aerial reconnaissance by an aeroplane in war took place over the Turkish lines near A zisa in October 1911, and w ithin a week, hand grenades had been dropped from the air on two Libyan towns. Interestingly, the Italian High Com m and thought that bombing did no serious m aterial dam age but had 'a wonderful m oral effect'; their belief foreshadowed that of the British Air Staff in the 1920s. A scents were frequent: over a period of six m onths a certain Captain M oizo m ade eighty-two flights; he also achieved the unhappy distinction of being the first pilot of an aeroplane to be captured behind enemy lines after the engine of his m achine failed during a reconnaissance in Septem ber 1912. Aircraft were used m ainly to trace enemy m ovem ents and to correct cartographical errors. Only som e years later would the Italians employ aeroplanes to subdue their dissident Libyan subjects.7 An active interest in m ilitary aviation w as not confined to the colo­ nial powers. During the M exican civil wars of 1913-15 both sides used aeroplanes for reconnaissance and bombing but, although som e civil­ ians were killed by air attack, these operations had little influence on the fighting. M any A sian heads of state have sought present power and lasting fame through the selective im itation of the m ethods of the West. King Vajiravindh of Thailand, educated at Oxford and Sandhurst, is an obscure but perfect example. He pursued a m odernizing policy and his brother, Prince Chakrabongse (the Army Chief of Staff) w as im pressed

[ 5]

AIR POWER AN D C O L O N I A L C O N T R O L

when a French aircraft w as dem onstrated at Bangkok in January 1911. By early 1914a sm all Thai m ilitary aviation group had been formed with French help. 'I am delighted that we T hai are not bested by the Westerner', noted the King w ith satisfaction in his diary. 'Truly we can do whatever they can do.'8 M ilitary aviation w as transform ed by the Great War which stim u ­ lated technical development and organizational change. M ost of the fighting on land and in the air w as confined to Europe, but aeroplanes also took part in the cam paigns fought in Africa and the M iddle East. The conflict between the colonial powers did not lessen the dem ands of im perial policing and aircraft began to be employed more widely in sm all wars. 'I suppose in a few years aeroplanes or airships w ill be used in West Africa', remarked a British official in 1914. 'They would be invaluable against the hill pagans, and the terror caused by them would probably do away with the need for bloodshed.' The First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, showed an interest in the prospects for air policing and he com m issioned a report on the possible use of aeroplanes for repression in Som aliland. During the cam paign in East Africa, a British aeroplane terrified som e Africans who, according to a Germ an officer, regarded it as M uungu, a supernatural being. In the Sudan in 1916, British aircraft helped to suppress the rebellion of Ali Dinar, the Sultan of Darfur. The m achines 'proved of considerable value' m ainly because they were less restricted by the natural obstacles which hampered operations on the ground. From 1915 aircraft took part in the policing of the Indian Frontier, and independent air raids in June 1917 helped subdue M ahsud insurgents.9 But these sm all-scale imperial operations excited very little public interest compared with the air raids launched by the Germ ans against the British m ainland. The land fighting on the Western Front becam e entrenched to stalem ate by the end of 1914 and both sides grasped at new weapons in the hope of victory. The first bomb to fall on British soil during the War was released by a Germ an aeroplane above Dover on C hristm as Eve 1914, but m ost raids against London until the autum n of 1916 were m ade by airships. The Kaiser w as at first reluctant to authorize attacks on England, and w as m ost anxious to avoid damage to the palaces of his royal cousins; but the London docklands, a workingclass area, were held to be a legitim ate m ilitary target. The eastern suburbs of the capital were first bombed in M ay 1915 and in June, follow ing a French raid on Karlsruhe, attacks on the entire city were allowed. But the unwieldy Zeppelins proved vulnerable to inclem ent weather and to an active defence, and on 28 N ovem ber 1916 two airships were shot down in flam es in a single night. By then, however, the G erm ans had begun to raid London with aeroplanes. A ttacks in squad­

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ron strength were carried out by twin-enginged G otha m achines and by the m uch larger R iesenflugzeuge, or G iant Aeroplanes, until M ay 1918. During this period G othas and G iants flew a total of 325 sorties, inflicting nearly 3,000 casualties at the heavy cost to them selves of sixty-two m achines.'0 The raids against London in the spring and sum m er of 1917 caused near panic am ongst the population and anger against the government which w as blam ed for the failure of British air defence. The first G otha attack reached central London in broad daylight, unopposed and in perfect formation, on 13 June. It left nearly 600 civilians dead and wounded in its wake. Although these losses were tiny compared with those caused by bombing during the Second World War, the novel form of the attack caused great fear. Londoners began to stay away from work and crowded for shelter in the Underground stations and tunnels. The air defences of the British m ainland had been run down in early 1917 as the guns and aircraft were urgently needed elsewhere. The defensive fire of bomber form ations was often fatal to lone fighters, and there w as no effective m eans of directing interceptors to the intruding m achines. At that time, British m ilitary aviation was divided between two separate arm y and navy bodies: the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal N aval Air Service. The raids intensified public agitation for a single, independent air force. In July 1917 General Sm uts w as appointed acting head of a com m ittee to investigate the way in which air defence was organized and conducted. Action w as expected. The Sm uts C om m ittee recommended that a single organization for the air defence of London be created, and advised that a unified air force, under an Air M inistry, be formed from the two existing bodies. It seem s that the Prime M inister, Lloyd George, had already m ade up his m ind in favour of this solution and, despite som e m ilitary opposition, the Air Force Bill became law in Novem ber 1917. The Royal Air Force w as created, to the am usem ent of its m any detractors, on All Fools' Day, 1918." The origins of independent air power therefore owed nothing to colonial conflict. The Royal Air Force w as formed because the binary division of British m ilitary aviation proved inefficient for the conduct of a m ajor European war. The shortcom ings of the existing system ap­ peared especially acute in the fearful afterm ath of the first G otha raids on London in the sum m er of 1917. But, shortly after the arm istice, the new service would see action in the Empire. Whatever its roots, the growth of the Royal Air Force would soon become entangled with the question of colonial control.

AIR POWER AN D C O L O N I A L C O N T R O L

The Frontier and Som aliland 1919-20 During the G reat War the air service of each belligerent power had dram atically grown. By the tim e of the G erm an arm istice in Novem ber 1918 the Royal Air Force, the largest of these air fleets, included nearly 300,000 officers and other ranks.12 Although a sm all Independent Air Force had been formed to raid Germ an towns, m ost front-line aircraft still fought in close support of the arm y during the last battles in the West. The end of active hostilities in Europe removed the threat of air raids against the British hom eland and thus undermined the original defen­ sive purpose of an independent air service. It seem ed that the Lloyd George government m ight abolish the Air M inistry within a few m onths of its creation, and when W inston Churchill w as appointed Secretary of State for War and Air in January 1919 it w as only on the clear understand­ ing that the RAF would not remain autonom ous. Churchill had at first accepted the secondary statu s of the m ilitary aircraft: in Decem ber 1918 he told Lloyd George that 'aeroplanes w ill never be a substitute for arm ies and can only be a valuable accessory'. But his public pronounce­ m ents com pletely changed once he took over the Air M inistry. On 12 January 1919 Churchill assured his anxious department that 'the Air Force w ill be retained as a separate service'. He even suggested that the tim e w as bound to com e when, 'given superior thinking power and knowledge', the RAF would 'obtain the primary place in the general conception of war policy'. At this stage Churchill w as probably not m oved by any profound belief in independent aviation: his defence of the Royal Air Force w as originally conducted in the hope of political gain.13 In early February 1919, Churchill asked Trenchard to take over as Chief of the Air Staff. Trenchard accepted the offer but soon fell ill with 'Spanish influenza' and asked to resign on grounds of poor health. Churchill persuaded him to reconsider and to see how he felt after a few w eeks' leave. Trenchard recovered and w as back at work in May. T his w as the inauspicious start to the com bination that would lead the independent air force through two of its m ost difficult years, conceive the plans for air control, and steer them towards political acceptance. Trenchard had not even welcom ed an independent air service at first, but his view s seem to have changed during 1918. The Lloyd George government w as anxious to reduce m ilitary spending as quickly as possible and Trenchard w illingly helped Churchill's efforts to prune the air estim ates below twenty or even eighteen m illion pounds. Trenchard did not believe that the air force could dom inate European warfare in the near future, but he did foresee an im portant role for aviation in the

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policing of the overseas Empire. The Adm iralty soon m ade it clear that they w ished to regain control of naval aviation; and in his White Paper of Decem ber 1919, Trenchard accepted that the naval and army co­ operation sections of the RAF would probably become 'in the future, an arm of the older services' - a concession he w as later bitterly to regret.14 Trenchards's belief that the Royal Air Force would be of value to im perial defence w as soon tested by a conflict w ith Afghanistan, known in Britain as the Third Afghan War and in Afghanistan, som ew hat more pointedly, as the War of Independence. Hundreds of thousands of British and Indian troops took the field along the Frontier. M ost fighting w as on land, and the Royal Air Force w as used m ainly in support of the imperial battalions. In early M ay 1919, for example, a series of raids w as carried out against D akka, then being used as a depot by the Afghan army. It is m ore difficult to discover the precise intention behind the concentrated attacks on the city of Jalalabad made by the aircraft of 31 Squadron on 17,20 and 24 May. M uch of the m ilitary area of the town w as burnt out, and a parade of Afghan troops w as once surprised and scattered, which w ould suggest the bom bing had a direct m ilitary purpose. But the damage to the civilian quarter m ust also have been heavy, as the extensive fires were clearly visible at night and after the attacks m uch of the population left the town for fear of further raids. The neighbouring Afridi and M ohm and tribesmen, who had been assem bled to receive arm s and am m unition, then took advantage of the confusion to loot the bazaar. M ost telling of all, however, were the leaflets describing the destruction, dropped by British aircraft over Afghan troops in an effort to dem oralize their opponents. When som e tribal sections in the Fron­ tier Province joined the conflict, their villages were also bom bed.15 Operations over the m ountains along the frontier with Afghanistan were alm ost constantly hampered by inclem ent weather. A Handley Page 0.400 twin-engined bomber w as flown to Risalpur from where it w as hoped it could bomb Kabul. On the evening it arrived, however, a large dust storm w as seen to form up in the area of the Khyber Pass. The bomber was turned into the wind, lashed down to screw pickets and shielded from the oncom ing storm by a windbreak formed from three Leyland lorries. The crew took hasty shelter indoors as the dust began to swirl about the airfield, obscuring the aeroplane com pletely. After about half an hour there w as a lull, and the pilot ventured outside to check the machine: 'What a sight, to be sure!' The wind had tossed the aircraft on its back, crushed its starboard side and broken its spine. 'It looked as if it had been overturned and then pushed along by a giant bulldozer.' Another dust storm on 21 M arch forced two m achines to turn back when attem pting to raid Jalalabad. Although the weather w as otherwise m ild for the season, the atm ospheric conditions over the hill

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country were very hazardous and aeroplanes were badly buffeted when crossing into Afghan territory. On one occasion two m achines were thrown upside down as they flew along the Khyber Pass. A s the weather becam e hotter, the turbulence increased, and by mid-May it w as im pos­ sible to take off after 9.30 am ; this greatly reduced flying hours.16 The resistance of Afghan soldiers and Frontier tribesm en to British air power w as som etim es effective. M achines operating low in hill country offered easy targets as they flew close to Afghan positions. On 9 May, during the sustained bombing of D akka, three aircraft were brought down, although all of them landed behind British lines. Other aircrew were less fortunate. Tw o officers were reported m issing on 13 M ay after they had been forced to land in the Bazaar valley. They burnt their m achine and surrendered, but were returned by the Z akka Khels ten days later, having been treated w ell during their captivity. N o ransom w as demanded, although 20,000 Rs had been offered for the safe return of each officer. The tribesm en som etim es interpreted the destruction of aircraft in religious terms. When one reconnaissance aircraft landed to refuel at M iram shah, but crashed on take-off, the rum our then spread that a local m ullah could cast spells over aeroplanes. T h is religious perception had a m aterial outcom e, for the British felt obliged to bomb targets nearby in order to lower his prestige am ong the tribes. A more 'rational' response occurred in July, when a band of between sixty and seventy Dhabi Khel M ahsuds m ade a 'cleverly organized attack' on the airfield at Bannu. They tried to break into the hangar but were driven off w ith loss by a platoon of Indian foot before they could damage any m achines.17 The m ost dram atic aerial event in the Afghan War w as the bom bing of Kabul. The Handley Page 0.400 originally detailed for this task was destroyed in the storm described above, so a second m achine had to be found. During the last year of the G reat War another Handley Page aircraft had been designed for the specific purpose of bombing Berlin, but peace broke out before this plan could be realized and only three exam ples of the four-engined Handley Page V.1500 were ever com ­ pleted. But the British still exploited the propaganda value of these aeroplanes, then the largest in the world, and in January 1919 one of the huge bombers, nam ed Old Carthusian, arrived in Karachi after the first through-flight from England to India. For the next few m onths it w as exhibited to the public in flying displays and used to give joy-rides to m em bers of the British and Indian elite. After the destructive storm , the V.1500 w as the only aircraft then in India which could easily reach Kabul, so it w as prepared for a raid on the Afghan capital. On 24 M ay 1919 - Empire Day, fittingly enough - O ld Carthusian m ade the threehour flight over the m ountains to Kabul. It is unlikely that the four 112-

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THE O R I G I N S OF AIR P O L I C I N G

pound and sixteen 20-pound bom bs dropped over the palatial and government buildings did m uch damage, although som e fires were undoubtedly started, but the propaganda value of the raid w as great. The Afghan army and m ountains could no longer shield the capital from direct attack; and General Sir Charles M unro (the C-in-C India) believed 'that this raid w as an im portant factor in producing a desire for peace at the Headquarters of the Afghan Governm ent'. In future, the Kabul raid w ould be repeatedly adduced by the Air M inistry as evidence for the value of air power in imperial defence.18 Im m ediately after the Great War there were popular disturbances in num erous im perial territories, during a period which John Gallagher appositely labelled 'The C risis of Empire'. The Royal Air Force several tim es saw action against nationalist or tribal dissidents in 1919 - action which seem ed to confirm Trenchard's belief that air power would prove m ost valuable to the Empire in a policing role. In 1914 the British declared a protectorate over Egypt and im posed m artial law for the duration of hostilities. The Egyptians were prom ised that they would not have to fight the Turks, but fellahin were recruited into the auxiliary forces. By 1919 the Wafd nationalist m ovem ent w as demanding an end to m artial law and censorship; there were widespread strikes and riots in the D elta area in M arch of that year. British aircraft patrolled com m unications, scattered propaganda, delivered m ail, re­ lieved garrisons and even attacked groups of Bedouin and dem onstra­ tors. During unrest in the Punjabi town of Gujranwala, an aeroplane also attacked a dem onstration w ith bom bs and m achine guns. The Air Staff, however, felt uneasy about using aircraft against rioters and adm itted that the action in the Punjab 'm ust have injured more than one innocent person' (in fact at least twelve were killed), although the Hunter Com m ittee, which investigated the events, accepted that the interven­ tion of the air force w as 'not only justified but necessary'. Peaceful dem onstrations of air power over Yemen in N ovem ber 1919 secured the release of a British diplom atic m ission which had been held hostage, but in the outlying regions of M esopotam ia, bombing w as held to be needed to enforce the authority of the civil adm inistration and to save the occupying army from difficult m arches and probable casualties.19 The longest and m ost widespread use of air power in the Empire during this period of crisis took place on the North West Frontier of India in 1919 and 1920. During the war of 1919 the Afghan A m ir had incited the tribes of the Frontier Province against the British and, after the A rm istice agreed towards the end of May, m any Pathans remained actively hostile to the government of India. M ilitary operations against the M ahsuds and Wazirs began early in Novem ber. They went on through the bitter cold of a Frontier winter. An Anglo-Indian colum n

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made slow progress through the dissident country, suffering heavy losses from skilful sniping and sm all-scale battles. The M ahsuds for­ m ally accepted British term s by the end of Decem ber 1919, agreed to the paym ent of a fine and allowed the unopposed passage of im perial troops through their territory; but sporadic fighting continued until the end of March 1920. The British feared that arm s were supplied to the tribesmen from across the Afghan border, and liked to attribute the improvement in tribal tactics to the knowledge im parted by trained soldiers who had deserted from the im perial forces. Each side suffered about 2,000 killed and wounded during the cam paign.20 During the first phase of these Frontier operations the air force acted independently. A series of raids intended to bomb the M ahsuds into subm ission began on 13 N ovem ber 1919, when twenty-five aeroplanes released 5 tons of ordnance over Kaniguram, M akin and Narobi. Within a few days this strategy achieved som e success as a few tribal sections, unable or unw illing to w ithstand the attacks, offered their subm ission to the im perial demands. M ost M ahsuds proved harder to subdue. Air raids went on until the end of November, between 2*/2 and 7 tons of bom bs being dropped every day, but by early Decem ber General Clim o (the O C W aziristan Force) w as beginning to doubt whether the M ahsuds would accept British term s until troops supplem ented the air force operations. Bombing w as suspended for a few days from 12 December while negotiations took place, and it briefly seem ed that independent aerial action m ight succeed. But a M ahsud jirga (or tribal council) did not accept the British term s and appealed to neighbouring tribesmen, the Wana Wazirs, for help. So on 18 Decem ber an imperial punitive colum n set out from Jandola. The month-long bombing cam paign showed that the tribesm en could adapt to aerial attack. They soon learned to remain still in the shadow of rocks when aeroplanes were audible, their accurate rifle fire from the ground brought down several m achines and the air force soon found it had to fly in larger form ations to disperse ground fire. C asualties from bombing were also less than expected. The Air Staff later claimed, as it often did when bombing failed, that independent air action would have succeeded had more aeroplanes been available. Once the W aziristan force began active operations, the work of th e RAF w as m ainly confined to the close support of troops on the ground. The im pressive number of soldiers deployed bore w itness to the figh tin g qualities of the Frontier tribesmen, to the difficult terrain and to the p o o r com m unications, all of which had to be overcome. The punitive co lu m n included six infantry brigades, four additional battalions, four cav alry regiments, sappers, m ountain batteries and m edium howitzers,- and i t totalled more than 29,000 men, accom panied by nearly 34,000 n o n ­

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com batants and tens of thousands of anim als. The colum n w as su s­ tained by daily convoys of pack, which in turn had to be protected by permanent posts set up at close intervals on com m anding heights along the line of advance. The m ovem ent of this ponderous expedition w as eased by the support of the Royal Air Force, which bombed parties of tribal soldiers while they were engaged by the im perial troops. After severe fighting in the second week of January, C lim o reported that 'the work of aeroplanes has been of the greatest assistance to the colum n'. An advanced landing ground w as constucted at Sora Rhoga by the beginning of February; aircraft which refuelled there, instead of returning to their more distant m ain base at Tank, could fly three tim es as m any sorties as before and thus keep in closer touch w ith the troops.21 The air operations against the Afghans and the Frontier tribesm en in 1919 and 1920 would soon becom e a m atter for intense debate between the War Office and the Air M inistry, as each departm ent tried to prove its case over air control by reference to previous im perial cam paigns. At the time, however, the results of the air action against the M ahsuds were assessed in a thoughtful and balanced way. General C lim o repeatedly em phasized that aeroplanes had been of great value when employed in support of ground troops; but he w as also aware of the lim itations of air power. He accepted that air attack had done great damage to livestock and had forced the tribesm en to evacuate half a dozen of the larger villages. C lim o noted, however, that m ost villages in W aziristan were too sm all to offer a suitable target for bombing, the m ud w alls of the houses cushioned the im pact of explosions, and the tribesm en could adapt to air attack. H is view s about the m aterial effects of bom bing were confirm ed when Kaniguram w as exam ined after its occupation. Sixteen tons of bom bs had been dropped on the town, but only four very sm all groups of houses had been destroyed: the bom bing w as inaccurate, 20pound bom bs did alm ost no damage and only 230-pound weapons could dem olish a building. But C lim o w as also unw illing to conclude that independent air policing could never work, unlike Air Com m odore Webb-Bowen, who com m anded the air force during the cam paign and who explicitly stated that 'the RAF acting alone w ill never overcome a courageous people'. Air policing w as not yet the politically contentious issue it later became, and opinion had still to harden along service lines.22 The cam paign against M oham m ed bin Abdulla H assan and his D ervish following in Som aliland in early 1920 w as exploited m ore than any other by the Air M inistry as an argum ent in favour of air policing. Bom around 1868, the so-called 'M ad M ullah' rose to prominence as the head of a religious m ovem ent in the later 1890s and w as the dom inant figure in Som ali history for alm ost a quarter of a century. He organized

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an armed resistance to British conquest am ong the warring tribes of the hinterland, h is career of expansion beginning in 1899. The British launched four expeditions against him in the early years of the tw entieth century, and inflicted a sharp, but indecisive, defeat upon the Dervishes in January 1904. For m ost of the next three years the M ullah consoli­ dated his position in the hinterland, a process that w as m ade easier by a British withdrawal to the coast in 1909. In 1912 the British raised a cam el constabulary to police the Protectorate, but this w as soon anni­ hilated by the D ervishes who raided Berbera on horseback in March 1914. The M ullah dem onstrated im pressive diplom atic, political and m ilitary skill; and at the height of his power he com m anded a force of som e 6,000 warriors. He obtained am m unition from Abyssinia, arm s from abroad, and in 1916-17 w as assisted by the G erm an armourer Em il Kirsch. By N ovem ber 1918 Dervish activity cost the Som aliland adm ini­ stration m ost of its revenue; and the War Office could lam ent that 'the continued im m unity of the M ullah, who now stands alone as an unsub­ dued native potentate in Africa, is a source of constant anxiety'.23 The strategy for defeating the M ullah w as debated anew after the end of hostilities in Europe. Various proposals had been floating around for the past two years, but it w as not until the last m onths of 1918 that General H oskins w as sent to Berbera to consider a course of action against the Dervishes. H oskins reported that the M ullah could be defeated in a cam paign of two or three m onths, provided a further four battalions of African and Indian troops were deployed and three squad­ rons of aircraft were used to scatter the Dervish soldiers. The War Office, however, 'had no intention of allowing them selves to be com m itted to m ilitary operations in that part of the world', a view which the Cabinet accepted. The Colonial Office w as also reluctant to find the funds for a land campaign; so in M ay 1919 Lord M ilner (the Colonial Secretary) privately asked Trenchard if he could find a way of defeating the M ullah m ore cheaply. A t the sam e tim e Churchill w as advocating the wider use of advanced technology, including aeroplanes and gas, to reduce the cost of policing the Empire. A conference chaired by Churchill overruled War Office objections and accepted a plan by which a single squadron of bombers w ould spearhead the campaign, w ithout additional ground troops being deployed in Som aliland. Cabinet approval w as granted in October. Henry Wilson (the CIGS) believed that the air schem e would fail, and that the War Office w ould later be obliged to furnish troops to retrieve the situation; but he withdrew his objections when he w as assured 'that under no conceivable circum stances' would any Arm y form ations be demanded.24 An air force unit, known as Z squadron, w as shipped to Berbera by HM S A i k R o y a l at the end of Decem ber 1919. By 20 January all eight

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aircraft had been assem bled and tested. The preparation of an air base at Berbera w as disguised under the pretext of oil prospecting. Stores were delivered from Egypt and fresh vegetables, essential to the health of the air force personnel, were shipped from Aden. Conventional hangars were too bulky to be transported into the hinterland by cam el, so windbreaks, twelve feet high, were im provised from scaffold poles, ropes, branches and rushes, while field workshops were built out of em pty petrol cases and m atting. Aerial photography w as used to identify Dervish forts, which were revealed to be 'im m ensely strong'. The operations which began on 21 January 1920 can be divided into two distinct phases: the first, which lasted only five days, consisted largely of independent air action, while during the second, m ore than three w eeks long, aircraft were used to support the m ilitary un its of the Protectorate. The opening air raids surprised the D ervish troops who were im m ediately scattered, defeated and pursued into the hinterland. The bombers were withdrawn to Berbera by 18 February. The air com ponent of the operations cost no more than £70,000, while the entire cost of a cam paign that finally destroyed the M ullah's power w as only around £ 150,00 g .25 The wider significance of the cam paign w as a m atter for dispute between the services. John Salm ond argued that the actions of the ground troops were 'invaluable' but 'subsidiary' to the bom bing cam ­ paign, which he considered a fine exam ple of the use of air power in colonial warfare. H is view s were supported by the Governor of the Protectorate who believed that the credit for the overthrow of the M ullah w as 'prim arily due to the Royal Air Force, who were the m ain instrum ent of attack and the decisive factor'. An editorial in T h e A ero p la n e went even further and claim ed that the im perial victory in Som aliland anticipated 'the degradation of the infantrymen from being the first line of attack to the position of a mere "m opper u p '". The War Office and its supporters, however, saw the cam paign in a different light and em phasized the lim itations of air power. Henry Raw linson (the Cin-C India) pointed out that independent air action had lasted just a few days and considered that only the sustained pursuit of the M ullah's forces by im perial ground troops caused the disintegration of Dervish resistance. Som e arm y officers even suggested that the presence of aeroplanes had hampered the chances of an im perial success. According to Colonel H. L. Ism ay (the Com m ander of the Som ali Field Force) com bined operations from the first day of the cam paign would have been more effective. The debate continued until at least the 1960s. When a sychophantic biography of Trenchard appeared in 1962, Ism ay com ­ plained (with som e justice) that 'Andrew Boyle's account of Som aliland is really too appalling. It's the sort of stuff that appears in the People or

AIR POWER AN D C O L O N I A L C O N T R O L

the N e w s o f the W orld only more inaccurate/26 There w as certainly som e truth in the War Office view of events in the Protectorate, although Ism ay w as undoubtedly going too far when he claim ed that 'Som aliland had been som ew hat a hoax on the part of the Air M inistry'. The forces of the M ullah had already been weakened when the air force struck, and the operations of 1920 were the culm ina­ tion of a cam paign of attrition fought by the Som ali C am el Corps over the past six years. A naval blockade had reduced supplies of arm s and am m unition to the D ervishes during the G reat War. But neither the War Office nor the Air M inistry were willing to attribute the defeat of the M ullah to developm ents w ithin Som ali society, for both D epartm ents shared the assum ption that the British were prim arily responsible for the overthrow of the Dervishes. M oham m ed bin Abdulla H assan had risen to prominence partly because he had been able to suppress the tribal conflict of the hinterland through his charism atic leadership, his appeal to com m on religious belief and his ruthlessness. But the increas­ ingly brutal m ethods used to m aintain the cohesion of the resistance gradually alienated his m ore doubtful supporters and by 1920 the M ullah faced a resurgence of traditional tribal antagonism s. Further­ more, the M ullah w as partly the victim of his own success. After he had consolidated his power in the hinterland his m en constructed a series of permanent forts. These were strong, indeed im pervious to the bom bs of the air force, but by tying his troops to a static system of defence, the M ullah deprived them of the chief advantages of guerrilla m ethods: m obility, surprise and elusiveness.27

Conclusion In a political sense, the correct explanation of the D ervish defeat in Som aliland becam e irrelevant, as both the War Office and the Air M inistry interpreted the cam paign in different w ays to advance their own political strategies. For, by the spring of 1920, Churchill and Trenchard were proposing that the air force could police the mandated territory of M esopotam ia for less cost than the traditional m ethod of m ilitary occupation. M eanwhile the War Office and the Adm iralty were preparing a case for the partition of the Royal Air Force and the return of its com ponent parts to their original parent services. The Reports of the Sm uts C om m ittee, which served alm ost as a charter for the inde­ pendent air force, m ade no m ention of colonial policing; but the survival of the third service during the lean years of the early 1920s would becom e closely bound up with its im perial role. The dram atic success against the M ullah proved, at least to those already disposed to believe, that air policing could work; the more stubborn resistance of the

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Frontier M ahsuds, however, showed that som e tribal adjustm ent to the new m ethod of control w as possible. The bom bing of Kabul in M ay 1919 dem onstrated that the aeroplane could strike beyond the geographical barriers of distance and m ountains, even if the dust storm s and turbulent hot air of the Frontier still acted as natural obstacles to the exercise of air power. Furthermore, the destruction of urban areas and of tribal villages raised awkward questions about the role of force in im perial control. Each of these them es is developed at greater length in the succeeding chapters.

C H A P T E R TWO

Iraq and the survival of the RAF

1920-25

I do not believe in Winston's ardent hopes of being able to govern Mesopotamia with hot air, aeroplanes and Arabs. Henry Wilson to Henry Rawlinson, 12 July 1921.1 I am having a terrific fight again with the Navy. I am also having a good deal of trouble in getting the increase to the Air Force that I want...The Northcliffe Press have been attacking me personally a great deal, and calling me hopelessly incompetent, but if only you can take over in Iraq all will be well. Trenchard to John Salmond, 27 July 1922.2 Iraq is the eastern arm of the fertile crescent, and the birthplace of the earliest civilizations. Its Greek name, M esopotam ia, m eans 'land be­ tween the rivers' - fittingly enough, for the silts gradually laid by the T igris and the Euphrates had insensibly formed the M esopotam ian plain. Broadly speaking, the m odem state of Iraq com prises three distinct geographical areas: the jagged hills to the north and north-east; the stoneless alluvium of the great rivers,- and a large stretch of desert in the w est and south-west of the country. The diverse population of Iraq, roughly two and a half m illion in 1920, closely followed these geographi­ cal divisions. The Arabs had conquered the plains in the seventh century: their language, manners and faith now dom inated that region. The m ountains - a barrier to the Arab invasion and hence a refuge for m inorities - were inhabited m ainly by Sunni Kurds, w ith a few scattered Christian, Yezidi and Turkom an com m unities. The desert w as sparsely peopled by Bedouin tribes, who preserved their nomadic ways largely undisturbed in its remote expanse. The minority of Jews, settled in Iraq since antiquity, were m ostly craftsm en and traders in Baghdad. The Arab cultivators were them selves divided between Shia and Sunni, of whom the former were more num erous and the latter more politically powerful.3 There is a useful body of scholarship on British policy in Iraq in the

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1920s. Several works m erit particular attention. Peter Sluglett has w ritten a careful account of the m andate years, but he devotes little space to defence. Jafna C ox has exam ined air control m ore closely, but in an article which is more a helpful sum m ary of the published m aterial than the product of original research. M artin G ilbert has extensively chronicled the various schem es devised by W inston Churchill to cut British m ilitary spending in the region: som e aspects of this problem have been ably analysed by John Ferris, Keith Jeffery and John Darwin.4 T h is chapter explores two relationships touched upon in the work above, but not yet fully understoood: the first between air control in Iraq and the survival of the Royal Air Force as an independent service,- the second between air power and indirect im perialism in the H ashem ite kingdom s.

The air control debate 1920-22 In 1914 the three vila yets (or provinces) of Iraq, M osul in the north, Baghdad in the centre and Basra in the south, remained, as they had done for centuries, under loose O ttom an control. Upon the outbreak of war between Britain and Turkey in Novem ber 1914 an Anglo-Indian force landed at Faw and proceded to take Basra. At this stage its object was merely to prevent T urkish activity in the Persian Gulf. But the lure of Baghdad proved too strong, the difficulties of a cam paign were too lightly regarded and the imperial troops were pushed deeper into M esopotam ia. In Decem ber 1915 the Turkish Army, reinforced after the British withdrawal from Gallipoli, struck back w ith success. An Anglo-Indian division w as encircled at Kut and forced to surrender in April 1916 after five m onths of bitter siege. D espite this disaster the British fought the M esopotam ian war to a victorious conclusion. Baghdad w as captured in M arch 1917 and M osul w as occupied in N ovem ber 1918, a few days after the arm istice öf M udros. For the next two years the British adm inistra­ tion in Iraq w as directed by the heavy hand of Sir Arnold Wilson, the C ivil Com m issioner. Although the British had declared that they w ished only to support a freely chosen local government, W ilson did little to build up an Arab state and the future political form of Iraq remained uncertain. These delays and vacillations only encouraged the growth of a national m ovem ent whose am bitions the British had som ehow to accom m odate.5 Whatever shape the future adm inistration of Iraq m ight assum e, there were m any w ithin the British government who could justify, in various ways, a continued British presence in the country, although their reasoning w as often challenged by those sections of the press and public who deplored a lengthy occupation. M esopotam ia had only been

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wrested from the T urks w ith the sacrifice of m any lives and m uch money, and som e clear advantage had to be derived if the im perial victories, and defeats, were to seem worthwhile. A secure route to India w as still a central concern of im perial strategy: an air and land bridge across the M iddle East offered a useful alternative to the m ain links by sea. Above all, however, despite the hum anitarian platitudes of the mandatory relationship and the repeated denials of British politicians, M esopotam ia w as chiefly valued as a potential source of oil. A s early as N ovem ber 1919 Churchill drew Cabinet attention to the 'vast but unproved fields in M osul' and Lloyd George later lam ented the failure to prospect more fruitfully during the British occupation. A s the Royal N avy gradually converted from coal-bum ing to oil-bum ing ships, it becam e more and more difficult to obtain supplies of high quality fuel. Dependence upon the production of the United States and M exico was a strategic em barrassm ent which m ight best be averted by the develop­ m ent of M esopotam ian reserves. The m otive power of these hopes for British policy in the early 1920s is not dim inished by the fact that they were never entirely fulfilled.6 T h is chapter takes as a central them e the interaction between over­ seas policy and dom estic events, and it is therefore im portant to illum inate the British context w ithin which the origins of im perial strategy m ay be partly discovered. Large-scale m ilitary spending and com pulsory m ilitary service abroad were both widely resented in Britain after 1918. The industrial class struggle became more intense; and the emergence of a powerful trade union m ovem ent, the growth of the Labour Party and the fear of revolution gave a keener political edge to proletarian am bitions. The very size of the army needed to defend an expanded British Empire w as a m atter for intense political debate during the crisis of the post-war years. The Coalition w as also anxious to cut government spending in order to restore Britain's declining econom ic position in the world and to reduce the vast debt accum ulated during the G reat War. M ilitary expenditure w as the m ain area in which econom ies could be m ade w ithout grave damage to the dom estic popularity of the government. Tension between the three service m inistries w as there­ fore heightened as each tried to defend its share of a shrinking budget at the expense of the others. A s the sm allest and newest service the Royal Air Force w as especially vulnerable to army and navy attack. The various schem es for the cheap Air M inistry control of Iraq were ad­ vanced to ensure the survival of an independent air force at a tim e when the existence of this service could best be defended on financial grounds.7 The cost of the large M esopotam ian garrison w as thought excessive by alm ost all British politicians, but it w as m uch less clear how to lim it the occupying forces without loosening the imperial hold over at least

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part of the country. In A ugust 1919 Churchill had warned that the garrison of 25,000 British and 80,000 Indian troops would have to be drastically cut; and in N ovem ber 1919 he suggested that British power could be more cheaply m aintained if m echanized forces replaced som e units of foot. He advised that the infantry garrison be reduced to a sm all force in a fortified cam p near Baghdad, w ith blockhouses at other im portant points, while m echanized units - on land, on river and in the air - patrolled the rest of the country. T h is w as the first of several sim ilar schem es proposed by Churchill over the next two years. The General Staff conceded that this plan appeared to offer an ideal solution to the problem of manpower, but m aintained that clim ate and geography m ade it im practical. Armed opposition to the British presence w as then m ainly concentrated in the Kurdish areas of the north, and the w ith­ drawal of the garrison to Baghdad w ould severely curtail British influ­ ence in these m ountain regions. Aircraft could certainly bombard the rebellious enclaves, but aeroplanes required advanced landing grounds from which to operate and these in turn needed troops to defend them. The General Staff also held that heavy sand, m ountain rain and wretched roads m ade the country unsuitable for armoured vehicles. The luke­ warm reception afforded this plan gave a foretaste of the bitter opposi­ tion that the schem e for air control w ould later m eet.8 But Churchill persisted in his attem pts to find a cheaper method of holding M esopotam ia. By early 1920 the garrison still included 14,000 British troops, besides Indians, and expenditure w as then running at about £18 m illion a year. Driven by this financial imperative, Churchill now began to think along more radical m ilitary lines. In mid-February he asked Trenchard whether he would be 'prepared to take M esopotam ia on': the bait w as an increase of five or six m illion pounds in the air force estim ates and the appointm ent of an Air Officer as Commander-inChief. Churchill believed that the country could be cheaply policed by aircraft arm ed with gas bombs, supported by as few as 4,000 British and 10,000 Indian troops; and he invited Trenchard to subm it a schem e along those lines. Trenchard obliged, as he wanted to find an independent peacetim e role to secure the future of his fledgling service. The Air Staff drew up a plan by which M esopotam ia would be garrisoned by ten air force squadrons, m ainly concentrated at Baghdad. Regular troops would be used only to guard air bases and perhaps for som e lim ited co-operation w ith the bombers. A s Trenchard pointed out, aircraft could strike sw iftly into areas barely accessible to ground forces, could distribute propaganda and could obtain early intelligence of hostile m asses. ChurchîIToutlined his schem e to the H ouse of C om m ons on 22 M arch.9 Churchill w as delighted w ith the Air Staff plan. 'T h is is an adm irable paper and is in full accord w ith m y general views', he wrote to Trenchard

AIR POWER AN D C O L O N I A L C O N T R O L

on 17 March. 'It should be printed at once. I propose to send copies to a few of the m em bers of the Cabinet...to obtain a definite expression of approval in principle.' The optim istic tone of this note suggests that Churchill w as quite unprepared for the opposition his air control schem e would confront. The proposals were form ally presented to the Cabinet in early M ay 1920. Hankey acknowleged that the plans were 'ingenious' but privately told Lloyd George that he w as sceptical of the value of aircraft and doubted whether air control would ever be carried out. The m ost intransigent opposition cam e from Sir Henry Wilson (the CIGS) who w as anxious to reduce world-wide British m ilitary com m it­ m ents, and who believed that even the present position in M esopotam ia could not be m aintained without more troops. W ilson's hostility to the air control schem e w as bound up w ith his desire to see the independent air force abolished. A s he confided to his diary on 7 M ay: 'The sooner the Air Force crashes the better...It is a w icked w aste of money as run at present.' Churchill him self w as in a som ew hat anom alous position. A s Secretary of State for both War and Air he w as advocating a schem e for air control w ith which the War Office were unlikely to agree. Indeed in July 1920 the War Office 'disclaim[ed] all knowledge' of Churchill's February note in which he outlined to Trenchard his air policing plans. Churchill's m ain concerns at this stage appear to have been personal: he sought to pull off a dram atic coup to revive his som ew hat unsteady political fortunes.10 W ilson's scepticism about air control m ight have been discounted as his usual scaremongering were it not for the outbreak of a full-scale uprising in M esopotam ia in the sum m er of 1920. It is im possible to accept the assertion of Elie Kedourie t^at the rising was the product of 'encouragem ent from outside7^ and~was im portant only in so far as external agitation 'succeeded in magnifying its extent and significance'. On the contrary, the revolt shook the very foundations of British rule in M esopotam ia, and brought about m ajor changes in political and m ilitary policy. The rising, m ainly a response to British tax policy, began in Rum aitha in early July and insurrection w as general along the lower Euphrates by the middle of the m onth. After a colum n com posed m ainly of the 2 M anchesters w as alm ost entirely destroyed by a rebel ambush, a division of Indian reinforcements w as hastily sum m oned to Basra, but the first of these reserves did not arrive until 7 August. The situation w as at its m ost serious during the last week of A ugust when the rebellion spread to the upper Euphrates and to the countryside around Baghdad: there were also the first signs of unrest in Kurdistan. At the height of their effort the tribesm en fielded about 131,000 men, of whom perhaps half were arm ed with m odem rifles. Their leaders were drawn m ainly from those groups whose power had waned under British rule: Shia

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IR A Q AN D THE S U R V I V A L OF THE RAF m u jta h id s, former O ttom an civil servants and ex-officers of the T urkish

arm ies. The leading Arab patriots in Baghdad and the w ealthy m er­ chants of Basra, m en w ith more to lose, stood aloof and aw aited the event. For the British the crisis had passed by m id-September but heavy fighting went on until the end of the follow ing m onth.11 Before the rebellion, the squadrons of the Royal Air Force had already been active in the policing of Iraq. Lieutenant-General Aylm er Haldane praised the 'adm irable work of...the RAF under extrem ely arduous conditions' after bombers had been used to suppress unrest in Kurdistan in the winter of 1919-20 and again the follow ing spring. Aircraft also patrolled the British line of com m unications between Baghdad and M osul and took punitive action against the Sufran tribe in the Diwaniyah area. But the 1920 rebellion convinced several observers that aircraft could not replace ground troops as the m ain im perial police force in Iraq. Haldane acknowledged that aeroplanes had proved of great value during the revolt for reconnaissance, close support, pursuit, rapid com m unica­ tion and dem onstration; but he denied that aircraft alone could force the subm ission of tribes who were com m itted to rebellion. Arnold W ilson believed that the m ain cause of the revolt w as the perceived m ilitary w eakness of the im perial forces after the reduction of the garrison: 'to kick a m an when he is down is the m ost popular pastim e in the East, sanctioned by centuries of precept and practice'. He also suggested, however, that the 'use of aeroplanes against recalcitrants' had created deep currents of resentm ent which had surfaced in rebellion. In August jl9 2 0 T h e T im e s rah a leading article which claim ed that the revolt had tested the m ethods of air control and found them wanting; and this before they had even been tried.12 Both Churchill and Trenchard tried to cast the m ost flattering light upon the actions of the Royal Air Force. During the first week of July there w as fierce fighting around Sam aw a and Rum aitha on the Eu­ phrates but, Churchill told the Cabinet on 7 July, 'our attack w as successful...The enem y were bombed and machine-gunned w ith effect by aeroplanes which cooperated w ith the troops.' During the blockade of Rum aitha, aircraft attacked rebel positions and dropped am m unition and food to the beleaguered im perial garrison. H aldane's initial asse ss­ m ent of the value of aircraft w as refuted point by point by the Air Staff. Given that the rebellion caught the M esopotam ian squadrons in the process of re-equipment it was, they claimed, 'the happiest augury for the future that so m uch w as effected'. M ost of the reservations about air control expressed by Haldane w ould have proved unjustified had more aircraft been available. Trenchard w as particularly incensed by Arnold W ilson's belief that bombing had partly provoked the rebellion. Had air action been 'strong and continuous' in the first place, argued Trenchard,

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then sufficient 'm oral effect' w ould have been created to prevent a rebellious outbreak. Interestingly, Haldane was eventually converted to the Air Staff point of view. In June 1921 he adm itted to Churchill that, had enough aircraft been available in the sum m er of 1920, he m ight have been able to contain the rebellion at its outbreak. The Air Staff made m uch propaganda of H aldane's conversion, hut his m ilitary colleagues suspected him of pandering to Churchill in the hope of personal reward.13 British policy towards M esopotam ia, already uncertain, fell into com plete confusion in the wake of the rebellion. In June 1920 Churchill had stressd the urgent need for a decision about the British occupation of the M osul vilayet. He suggested that a great financial saving was possible if the im perial troops were withdrawn to the railheads, al­ though this w ould m ean the surrender of British influence over m uch of Iraq. The military, alm ost with one voice, urged that British com m it­ m ents in M esopotam ia and Persia be contracted to accord more closely with the number of troops at hand. By early Decem ber 1920 m any of the units sent to suppress the rebellion were still in M esopotam ia, whose garrison then numbered 17,000 British and 85,000 Indians, at an esti­ m ated yearly cost of £30 m illion. The expense of this huge and perhaps redundant force remained deeply unpopular with those sections of the British public who weighed such m atters. The General Staff believed -Basra and the Anglo-Persian oilfields could be held by one division for £ 8 m illion a year. This, however, would m ean the destruction of the M andate; the end of all hopes of a friendly Arab government; the loss of northern Persia, M osul and Baghdad; and perhaps the occupation of these areas by the Turks or the Bolsheviks. The Cabinet could not com e to this painful decision but advised the Baghdad High C om m issioner in Decem ber that a retreat to Basra w as expected. It now seem ed unlikely that air control would ever be carried out. 'The future of M esopotam ia', wrote Henry Wilson in the N ew Year, 'lies in the laps of the G ods.'14 In early 1921 the log-jam began to move. The confusions and contra­ dictions of British policy in the M iddle East were caused in part by the awkward division of Departm ental concerns: Cyprus and British Som ali­ land were overseen by the Colonial Office; Egypt, Palestine and the Sudan by the Foreign Office; Arabia, M esopotam ia and Aden by the India Office. The defeat of O ttom an Turkey had left a vast stretch of territory under British m ilitary occupation, and several m inisters had suggested that policy in this area were best co-ordinated by a single Departm ent of State. On the last day of Decem ber 1920 the Cabinet decided to create a new M iddle Eastern Departm ent under the C olonial Office to adm ini­ ster Palestine, Transjordan and Iraq. Lord Milner, the Colonial Secre­ tary, wanted none of these onerous duties, but Churchill w as willing to

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assum e responsibility as he still hoped to gain popularity and kudos by solving the problem of expenditure in Iraq: in January 1921 he took over the new M iddle Eastern Departm ent and in February he becam e C olo­ nial Secretary. He at once began to intervene w ith his custom ary energy: 'W inston', observed Henry Wilson, 'can be guaranteed to box up the whole situation quicker than alm ost any other Frock I ever m et.' Churchill im m ediately instructed Sir Percy C ox (the High C om m is­ sioner for Iraq) to reduce the M esopotam ian garrison as rapidly as possible and to begin carrying out the air schem e 'at any rate in some\ parts'. C ox threatened to resign but w as soothed by C hurchill's assu r­ ance that he did not intend to sacrifice British control over Iraq.15 Churchill w as already planning his dram atic coup. On 14 February 1921 he asked for and obtained Cabinet perm ission to hold a conference at Cairo in March, where the British authorities in the M iddle Eastern M andates would review policy and m ake definite proposals. The Air Staff drew up a long paper which considered the future role of the air force in im perial defence. C iting the experience gained in Som aliland and W aziristan, and noting the urgent need for economy, it w as recom ­ mended that 'the efficacy of the Royal Air Force as an independent arm should be put to proof by the transference to it of primary responsibility for the m aintenance of order in som e area of the M iddle East, preferably M esopotam ia'. The Conference took place between 12 and 30 March; and the schem e for air control w as discussed in detail by a m ilitary subcom m ittee. Trenchard, who accom panied Churchill to Cairo, w as delighted by 'the alacrity w ith which people are com ing round to our ideas'. Arnold Wilson had already lent his influential support to the air control scheme,* and Percy Radcliffe (the DMO) concluded the air force had to be given an independent role in peacetim e to prepare effectively for war. The Conference approved the Air Staff scheme, and Churchill and Trenchard returned to London satisfied with the progress of their plan s.16 The Cairo Conference also approved an increase in the subsidies paid to those Arab leaders whose territories marched w ith that under British control. Ibn Saud, by now the m ost powerful figure in the Arabian Penninsula, w as to receive £100,000 per annum, m onthly in arrears, on condition he m aintained peaceful relations w ith M esopotam ia, Kuwait and the Hijaz,- King H ussain, the Sharif of Mecca, w as treated on a sim ilar basis,- the Iman of Yemen w as granted £2,000 a month, provided he did not disturb the peace of the Aden Protectorate; and sm aller paym ents were m ade to other princes in proportion to their power to harm the interests of the Empire or tarnish its prestige. These subsidies were directly related to the strategy of air substitution and the emerging system of inform al control. If the British garrisons in the M iddle East

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were to be successfully reduced, the frontiers of the m andated territories had to be protected from tribal raids. It w as hoped that the thousands spent to purchase the neutrality of the independent Arab states would be recouped m any tim es over in future when m illions were saved by air control.17 The approval of the Cairo Conference w as only the first stage in the acceptance of the air control schem e; the sanction of the Cabinet had also to be obtained. After Cairo, the War Office began a concerted attack not merely upon air policing but upon the very existence of an independ­ ent air force. In M ay 1921 Lam ing Worthington-Evans (the Secretary of State for War) pointed out that the programme of reductions to the M esopotam ian garrison agreed at Cairo presum ed the absence of organ­ ized attack from outside or serious internal disturbance. Since T urkish troops were suspected of having infiltrated the M osul vilayet, he asked that the reductions to the garrison be halted, but the Cabinet did not accept his views. The General Staff then argued that the Air M inistry w as pursuing a 'separatist' policy when 'the true role of aeroplanes is that of an auxiliary to troops'. Since the RAF had not yet m ade good the claim that it could independently control the M iddle Eastern M andates, they advised that the air force be partitioned between the older services. The General Staff were reluctant to discuss the role of the air force w ithout questioning the very existence of an independent RAF; but the conclusions prepared for the C om m ittee of Imperial Defence by Lord Balfour in July supported air force autonom y and called for co-operation rather than com petition between the services. By this stage Trenchard w as confident that air control would in the end be carried out, and he began discussions w ith his subordinates on this b asis.18 By early A ugust Churchill w as under pressure from two opposite directions. The cam paign for econom y w as hitting the War Office very hard and they were therefore 'desperately anxious' to quarter at least rseven British battalions in Mesopotamia,- otherwise they m ight be ; disbanded. Lloyd George, by way of contrast, w ould have preferred to withdraw com pletely from Iraq, to establish an independent sovereign and to further British interests by the paym ent of a £1 m illion annual subsidy. Churchill brought the air control schem e before the Cabinet on 18 August. He asked that the garrison be reduced to eight or nine AngloIndian battalions by the end of the current financial year, and that the air schem e be carried out from the beginning of October 1922. H is proposals closely followed those that had been approved at Cairo: Iraq w ould be policed m ainly by eight air force squadrons, backed by two British and two Indian battalions, three com panies of armoured cars and various supporting units. Worthington-Evans put up a spirited opposi­ tion, concluding that the proposed garrison w as 'altogether inadequate'

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and that it w as 'undesirable and uneconom ical to allow the air force to depart from its present function of an ancilliary service'. But the Cabinet, no doubt swayed by the im pressive econom ies prom ised by Churchill, approved the broad outlines of the schem e. Although Worth* ington-Evans w as allow ed to register his dissent, the decision w as a m ajor victory for the A ir M inistry, a m ajor defeat for the War Office and a calculated risk in Iraq.19 T. O. Ranger has argued that even those rebellions which apparently 'fail', at least in a m ilitary sense, can still achieve som e political gains, chiefly by m aking the im perial power fearful of a repetition and aware of the need to find local allies. T he evidence of the Iraq rebellion seem s to confirm Ranger's hypothesis. Arnold W ilson had been m ost unenthusiastic about the idea of an Arab state in M esopotam ia, and the lim ited concessions he m ade to nationalist opinion in the first half of 1920 were unw illingly granted. Once the rebellion had begun, however, Churchill concluded it could best be defeated by com bining m ilitary repression w ith a search for political allies. Percy C ox and Gertrude Bell, one of his chief advisors, also believed that any future M esopotam ian adm inistra­ tion had to be m ainly Arab. Ip July 1920 (he A m ir Faisal, the son of the Sharif of Mecca, w as expelled by the French from D am ascus, where he had briefly headed an independent Syrian government. Faisal w as regarded by the British as the m ost suitable candidate for the throne of M esopotam ia because his fam ily were widely respected in the Arab world, his religious tolerance, m ade him acceptable to the Shias, he w as hostile to Bolshevism and he w as a well-known nationalist leader. French opposition w as partly stilled by a guarantee to control tribal raiding along the Syrian frontier. Faisal arrived in M esopotam ia in July 1921 and in August, after a dubious referendum appeared to confirm his popularity, he w as crowned Ring of Iraq. The reduction of the garrison, the elevation of Faisal, the paym ent of subsidies to Arab leaders and the purchase of French acquiescence were all aspects of a single strategy of indirect rule intended to reduce the costs of im perialism in Iraq. Its ultim ate success depended upon air control.20 The future shape of the adm inistration in Transjordan w as also broadly settled in the early m onths of 1921. Churchill originally recom ­ mended the m ilitary occupation of the country to prevent raids on Palestine and stop intrigue against the French in Syria, but the Cabinet w ished to avoid the com m itm ent of a British battalion if possible. While the Cairo Conference w as in session, separate discussions took place in Jerusalem w ith the A m ir Abdullah, the brother of Faisal. It w as agreed that Abdullah should govern in Transjordan for the next six m onths at least; and he asked for the help of British officers, funds and bombers. A conference of British M inisters in April agreed to Abdullah's request.

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Three aerodromes were to be built in Transjordan and the air force squadrons were to m ark out a desert route across the country to link Palestine and Iraq. The decision to underwrite Abdullah with aircraft mirrored the creation of an Arab kingdom, under Faisal, in M esopota­ m ia. Abdullah cam e to depend more and more upon the Royal Air Force for his survival. 'British aeroplanes and armoured cars' observed Herbert Sam uel (the High C om m issioner for Palestine) in April 1924 'are the chief m eans of securing the safety and stability of the A m ir's Govern­ m ent.'21 D espite the new air force arrangements in Transjordan, the War Office continued to voice doubts over the plans for air control in Iraq. During the last few m onths of 1921 m ost of the objections to the air schem e em phasized the threat to the M osul vilayet posed by Turkish forces, resurgent under the leadership of M ustafa Kemal. The Arab Army w as due to relieve the British troops in M osul by the spring of 1922, but Aylm er Haldane did not believe that the Iraqi battalions could yet be relied upon. The War Office shared his m isgivings. Percy C ox w as more optim istic about air control, but still feared T urkish attack in the north. The chance of an invasion increased towards the end of 1921 as the T urkish army inflicted m ajor defeats upon the Greeks in Anatolia and M ustafa Kem al settled som e of his outstanding differences with France and the Soviet Union: the T urkish forces released by these political and m ilitary successes could now be used elsewhere - perhaps to invade Iraq. At the sam e tim e the War Office began a further attack upon the independent Air M inistry. Lord Balfour had justified the existence of a separate service partly because of the independent role the air force could play in 'savage warfare'. In September Henry Wilson denied that air policing could ever be 'independent', but m ust inevitably rely upon the intelligence and com m unications of an army, whether British or Arab. Wilson also considered that the aircraft had serious lim itations as a political weapon: 'air power' he argued, 'provides only a m eans of propaganda or an instrum ent of terrorism'. He called for the abolition both of a separate air force and of a separate Air M inistry. In October Lord Beatty (the CN S) added his support.22 These War Office attacks cam e at a tim e when the press w as clam our­ ing for cuts in public spending and an 'anti-w aste' cam paign w as threatening the government.23 In M ay 1921 the Treasury warned all departm ents of state that by 1922 government spending looked likely to excede incom e by more than £100 m illion. Since the government would neither increase borrowing nor raise the level of taxation, the estim ates had to be cut by around twenty per cent. A com m ittee under Sir Eric Geddes w as appointed to consider every aspect of government spending: all activities which were 'not essential to the national welfare' had to be

[28]

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justified afresh and if any Departm ent failed to present its estim ates to the com m ittee by 1 January 1922, then these w ould be prepared by the Treasury.24 Trenchard w as confident that any enquiry into the expendi­ ture of the service m inistries would vindicate his schem e for air control in Iraq.25 Geddes presented his report in Decem ber 1921. M artin Gilbert claim s that Geddes proposed 'to break up the Air Force into Arm y and N avy wings, and to rejoin them to their parent services', and he argues that only Churchill's powers of persuasion thwarted this plan.26 Here Gilbert is m istaken. Far from recom m ending the disbandm ent of the RAF, the Geddes C om m ittee believed that an independent air force had in itself achieved econom ies by ending som e duplication of services. 'We are particuarly impressed', observed the report, 'w ith the very large savings which...can be realized in the Middle East as soon as the transfer of responsibility from the Army to the Air Force can be effected.' The Geddes Report w as a striking vindication, on financial grounds, of the independent air force in general and the schem e for air control in particular. Nevertheless, sweeping cuts in all three defence services were demanded, and the air force lost the bulk of its arm y and navy co­ operation squadrons.27 D espite the recom m endations of the Geddes Report the War Office persisted in their attem pts to secure the partition of the air force. The Geddes C om m ittee had advised that, to avoid duplication of facilities by the different services, a M inistry of Defence be created to oversee the Admiralty, War Office and Air M inistry. But in February 1922 Worthington-Evans suggested that duplication would be best avoided if the m ilitary functions of the air force were transferred to the War Office. He supported his argum ents w ith the exam ple of Iraq, where the Air M inistry proposed 'to organize and m aintain units which are indistin­ guishable from units of the Army', such as armoured car com panies, pack batteries and aerodrome guards. If the naval and m ilitary functions of the air force were transferred to the Adm iralty and War Office respectively then, he argued, not only would m illions be saved but 'real progress in m ilitary aviation' would be greater. T h is tim e the Cabinet chose not to reopen the question of an independent air force - the War Office attack directly contradicted the financial conclusions of the Geddes Report, and it w as very unlikely that the arm y could indeed police M esopotam ia more cheaply than the air force.28

Air control in action 1922-25 The prospects for air control did not depend solely on the evolution of strategic policy in Britain, but also on the success of indirect rule in Iraq. In the spring of 1922 the power of the British M andate in the newly

AIR POWER AN D C O L O N I A L C O N T R O L

founded kingdom w as still uncertain. It w as im portant that Faisal w as not perceived as a mere w illing client, but General Haldane reported in M arch that 'the King here is very widely regarded as a British puppet'. The following m onth a m eeting of Shia ulam a protested against the m andate. During the sum m er it seem ed that agreement m ight not be reached over the term s of a treaty to regulate relations between Britain and Iraq. Faisal had to placate the Arab Extrem ist Party, which sought full independence, but he w as also aware that his power ultim ately depended upon British support. The agitation which had been growing throughout the sum m er reached crisis point in August. Extrem ist letters to the press demanded the abrogation of the mandate, the dism issal of certain British officials, the resignation of the Iraqi Cabinet and the rejection of the treaty in its present form. On 23 A ugust the Cabinet resigned alm ost to a man, and Sir Percy Cox, arriving at the serai to congratulate Faisal on the first anniversary of his accession, w as publicly jeered at by an Extrem ist crowd. C ox demanded and obtained an apology from Faisal. The King w as then struck down by appendicitis, so C ox took over the reins of government. He suppressed the Extrem ist Party, arrested its leaders and banned its newspapers. When Faisal recovered, he endorsed the action taken by C ox in his absence. A new Iraqi Cabinet signed the treaty in October but the docum ent could not be ratified except by a C onstituent Assem bly, and the elections for this body were aborted. It seem ed that political deadlock had been reached.29 The British position in Iraq in 1922 w as further com plicated by the delicate situation in the M osul vilayet. T urkish troops still m assed along the border w ith Iraq and it w as clear that any T urkish attem pt to retake M osul could be backed by im pressive force. The War Office advised that a reduced im perial garrison could be cut off by a T urkish invasion; and in February 1922 they recom m ended an im m ediate withdrawal from M osul, followed by a concentration on Basra once the garrison w as down to four battalions. The War Office fears for the imperial troops were no doubt partly based on sound m ilitary reasoning; but their w illingness to abandon m ost of Iraq to the T urks w as perhaps also m otivated by a desire to thwart the air control scheme. The Cabinet w as not yet prepared to sanction a retreat. In March, Curzon warned Yussuf Kem al Bey that any attack on British interests in the M osul vilayet would 'be resisted w ith all the force of the Empire. ' Nevertheless, T urkish irregulars infiltrated Iraqi Kurdistan and supported local upris­ ings. Sheikh Mahmud, a religious leader agitating for Kurdish independ­ ence, w as conducting a guerrilla war against the British in the area around Sulaym aniyah. The fighting showed that the embryonic Iraq Levies were not yet fully reliable, and in September 1922 the im perial soldiers and adm inistration were withdrawn from Kurdistan east of a

[30]

I RAQ AN D THE S U R V I V A L OF TH E RAF

line through Kirkuk and Arbil. The General Staff m ade m uch of this enforced retreat and argued that if the local levies were ineffective then air control could not possibly work.30 The British press w as alm ost unanim ously hostile to the continued occupation of Iraq, and Churchill felt aggrieved that he had earned him self no public gratitude for the reduction in spending he had already achieved. But, as he confessed to Lloyd George in Septem ber 1922, the British presence w as difficult to justify: 'in m y own heart I do not see w hat we are getting out of it'. Shortly afterwards the Coalition fell and w as replaced by a Conservative adm inistration under Andrew Bonar Law. The new government began, during its early m onths in office, seriously to consider the evacuation either of all Iraq or of the M osul vilayet, to avoid a possible confrontation w ith Turkey. Trenchard w as confident that Iraq would not be abandoned, but he w as less optim istic about the future of the air force. The Bonar Law government reopened the question of an independent Air M inistry and briefly contem plated the partition of the RAF. Trenchard w as nevertheless pleased w ith his new Secretary of State, Sam uel Hoare: 'a young m an of 42, w ith a good and quick brain...I think he w ill be a tower of strength when he understands all the difficulties of the subject.' Trenchard w as gravely worried by the uncertain future of the air force and of the British presence in Iraq,* and his letters to his closest subordinates during this period clearly betray his anxiety. Although the im m ediate threat to the RAF soon receded, Trenchard wrote in January 1923 that 'frankly I think (though I m ay be wrong) that I m ay not be m uch longer in office'.31 It w as therefore against an unprom ising political and m ilitary back-, ground that air control w as inaugurated on 1 October 1922, after nearly three years of som etim es passionate debate. The first Air Officer Com m anding w as John Salm ond: since his actions as an individual were of more general significance, his character should be assessed. Salm ond w as not an especially studious man, even by the unexacting standards of the Royal Air Force, but he w as quick-witted and energetic. He had extensive knowledge of air m atters, although Richard M einertzhagen suspected that 'his reputation has outrun his experience and it w ill be som e years before h is judgement can be tempered by sound m ilitary principle'. Salm ond w as known for h is charm ing m anners. Henry Dobbs, who replaced Percy C ox as High Com m issioner, believed that 'his attractive personality has alw ays m inim ized the possiblities of friction upon inevitable points of disagreem ent'. Salm ond assum ed control of all imperial m ilitary forces in Iraq - eight squadrons of aircraft, nine battalions of British and Indian infantry, besides local levies, armoured cars, pack artillery and supporting units. Salm ond did not consider that the defence of M osul w as an especially sound m ilitary

[31]

AIR POWER AN D C O L O N I A L C O N T R O L

proposition, but if attacked he intended to gain tim e by fighting a rearguard action which w ould allow his bombers the best chance of disrupting a T urkish advance. The A ir Staff approved this forward policy.32 Salm ond did not institute his forward strategy im m ediately, but a sm all-scale bombing cam paign against T urkish positions in Iraq achieved striking success. The active T urkish garrison of Rowanduz in northern Iraq had inflicted a sharp defeat on the Iraq Levies at Rania shortly before air control had begun. By the third week in October, however, unsup­ ported air action had driven the T urkish troops from the Rania, Koi Sanjak, Quala D iza and Bira Kapra districts. The im m ediate fears of T urkish attack were partly relieved. Percy Cox, who had previously been sceptical of air control, seem s to have been won over by the brief bombing campaign, for he em phasized the 'rem arkable success which has attended a free and vigorous use of our aerial resources'. The General Staff, however, considered that the local victories in Kurdistan did not prove that aerial action could check a m ajor T urkish attack w ithout the help of troops on the ground. 'I am perfectly certain', observed Lord Derby, the Secretary of State for War, 'that the air force alone, unsup­ ported by bayonets, is quite incapable of defence of this vast area.' Air control w ould have to be m ore severely tested before the War Office would accept the policy as irreversible.33 In N ovem ber 1922 an A llied-Turkish Peace Conference opened at Lausanne. It soon becam e clear that the T urks intended to demand the restitution of the M osul vilayet on ethnic, historical, econom ic and national grounds. Curzon resisted this claim , and the following January a com bined British and Iraqi force w as m oved up to the city of M osul as a dem onstration intended to back the British negotiators at Lausanne. After the Conference adjourned in early February 1923, Salm ond ef­ fected his forward strategy. He wanted to ensure that the statu s quo along the frontier favoured the British when the Conference reas­ sembled. Tw o colum ns of im perial troops - British, Indian and Iraqi were pushed into the rebellious areas of Kurdistan. Trenchard w as nervous about the advance, but he w as prepared to trust Salm ond's judgement. Rebel positions around Sulam aniyah were bombed, the city w as briefly occupied and the Kurdish leader, Sheikh M ahmud, fled across the Persian border. Imperial troops advanced on Rowanduz which the T urkish irregulars evacuated without fighting on 24 April 1923, just as the Lausanne Conference resumed. D irect Iraqi adm inistration w as later im posed over m ost of Kurdistan. The Royal Air Force figured prom inently in this cam paign - ferrying troops, dropping supplies, evacuating the wounded and bom bing in support of the soldiers.34 While Kurdistan w as being reoccupied, the Bonar Law adm inistration

[32]

IRA Q AN D THE S U R V I V A L OF THE RAF

began to clarify its overall policy towards Iraq. In N ovem ber 1922 a com ­ m ittee under the Colonial Secretary, the D uke of Devonshire, w as ap­ pointed to exam ine the situation in the kingdom and to m ake recom ­ m endations, if possible before the talks w ith Turkey were completed. Influential opinion in Parliam ent and the country favoured an early withdrawal. Trenchard w as confident that the com m ittee w ould reject this policy, despite press agitation in favour of a retreat, but he acknow l­ edged that 'political considerations are so jum py just at present that anything m ay change the political pressure and m ake it still greater'. The Iraq C om m ittee, which presented its Report in M arch 1923, supported the British occupation of the M osul vilayet for three reasons: no withdrawal could be safely com pleted in less than tw o years; any retreat w ould involve a breach of faith w ith the League of N ations and w ith the Arab Kingdom; and the surrender of M osul would lay Baghdad and even Basra open to T urkish attack. The Cabinet approved a contin­ ued British presence in M osul and decided that the planned reductions to the im perial garrison should go ahead, while the Iraq Levies, the essential adjunct to air control, were to be maintained. For several m onths the direction of British policy in Iraq, and w ith it the future of air control, had been uncertain. The acceptance of the Devonshire Report showed that a policy of air control would be pursued - provided the air force itself remained in being and the British hold on Iraq w as secure.35 The reoccupation of Kurdistan also took place while the statu s of the Royal Air Force w as once again under scrutiny. A subcom m ittee under Lord Salisbury w as set up in M arch 1923 to investigate the still-troubled relations between the Arm y and the RAF. The Adm iralty also m ade a determined attem pt to regain control of naval aviation, so the two older services joined forces and tried to secure the abolition of the RAF - one of the few aim s they had in com m on. The enquiry w as m uch more favourable to the RAF than Trenchard had dared to hope: by early June he w as 'certain that we shall win'. Although the Salisbury C om m ittee w as charged only w ith discussing wartim e control of air forces, the War Office again decided to raise 'fundam ental issues'. Lord Derby claim ed that the RAF w as merely a supplem entary force, a new arm rather than a new service, a claim that w as itself based on the belief that air forces could not achieve independent victories. Even air policing, observed Derby, needed troops to prepare the way, to guard aerodromes and to cover any retreat. The Air Staff replied: the power of the Air Force both to achieve and consolidate victory has been proved on a small scale in Iraq, where villages in armed revolt have, without the intervention of ground troops, capitulated to punitive action by air. The difference between this class of operation and war with a country such as Afghanistan is in degree not kind.

[33]

AIR POWER AN D C O L O N I A L C O N T R O L

The rival argum ents about the independent air force therefore partly depended upon different perceptions of air policing. The Cabinet consid­ ered the Salisbury Report in July 1923, and decided to confirm the autonom y of the RAF. Trenchard believed that the im pressive results already achieved by air control added weight to the Air M inistry arguments; and to John Salm ond he wrote: 'I cannot em phasize too m uch the value your successful com m and in Iraq has been to u s.' The connection between air policing and the survival of the air force could not be more clearly illustrated.36 Air policing w as the m ain but not the sole reason for the survival of the RAF. The Salisbury C om m ittee had drawn attention to the potential menace posed by French m ilitary aviation which had interm ittently excited the fears of British politicians and propagandists since 1921. In October of that year Lord Balfour noted the vast number of French bombers based in Europe. He suggested, perhaps with som e exaggera­ tion, that the protection of the U nited Kingdom from air attack w as 'the m ost formidable defence problem now before us'. The Air Staff were willing to concur, in part because the fear of an aerial arm ada across the Channel could underline their case for the central and independent direction of air defence. Henry W ilson w as more sceptical: 'It w as all so unreal that I could take no interest', he noted in his diary after one discussion on 9 November, 'but I could not help pointing out that it w as curious that, on Trenchard's showing, a country w ithout a separate Air M inistry could annihilate a country with a separate Air M inistry.' D espite W ilson's doubts, a subcom m ittee was detailed to discuss m easures of defence and its advice that the Home Defence Air Force be m ultiplied in size w as accepted by the Cabinet in A ugust 1922. The investigations and findings of the Salisbury C om m ittee were also partly prompted by the French occupation of the Ruhr in early 1923. But the French air threat w as politically far less im portant than the policing of Iraq. Even the subcom m ittee on the Continental Air M enace accepted that air attack by France w as 'hardly conceivable'; and the proposed expansion of air defence w as persistently postponed until the rise of the Luftwaffe. A t a tim e when both the public and the Treasury hoped that m ilitary spending would be reduced, the schem e for the inexpensive control of Iraq won more influence than the plan to increase the number of squadrons at hom e.37 . The British position in Iraq soon becam e more secure. N ational j feeling w as soothed som ewhat by concessions: a law of January 1923 : prom ised that all subordinate officials were to be Iraqi, and another 1statute in May shortened the period of the treaty with Britain from twenty to four years. The election of a Labour government in January 1924 encouraged nationalist hopes, but these were disappointed when

[34]

IRA Q AN D THE S U R V I V A L OF TH E RAF

continuity in policy w as preserved. The T urkish government still sought the restoration of M osul, so its agents spread propaganda in Kurdistan and fed rum ours of impending attack. In the sum m er of 1924 a conference at Constantinople revealed the irreconcilable difference between T urkish and Iraqi claim s to the M osul vilayet. In the m eantim e, the British government decided that any attem pt to seize the province by force w ould involve the Empire in war. Violence w as alw ays close to the surface. In August, T urkish irregulars attacked Christian Assyrian settlem ents in the H akkiari district, just north of the disputed border. From early Septem ber sm all bands of T urkish troops were active in Iraq; local fighting began and im perial reinforcem ents were m oved into M osul. Resistance w as based on British air power. The bombers were directed m ainly against the T urkish line of com m unications, and struck decisively against the initial incursion, which convinced the local tribesm en that any attem pt to recover M osul w ould be firm ly resisted. T urkish and British delegates at Geneva then agreed to respect the statu s quo in the vilayet pending a League of N ations decision. After a form al warning in early October, the T urkish troops were withdrawn.38 By 1925 it w as clear that air control had successfully m aintained British influence in Iraq w ithout the heavy expenditure im plied by an arm y garrison. The com m uniqués of the Iraqi government and the reports of the Arabic newspapers stressed the role of Iraqi forces in m aintaining security; but m ost British observers concluded that the absence of m ajor m ilitary challenge to the Baghdad regime w as largely due to the power of the bomber. 'Air control has been so brilliantly, m agnificently successful' remarked Henry D obbs (the High C o m m is­ sioner) in M arch 1924 'that it has far outstripped the expectations of the Cairo Conference of 1921.' Leo Am ery and Sam uel Hoare toured Iraq in M arch and April 1925 to investigate indirect rule and air control. Am ery concluded that a general rising against the government w as now 'alm ost inconceivable'. He w as particularly struck by the reduction in British expenditure, which had passed £20 m illion in the financial year 1921-22, compared w ith a current estim ate of under £3.4 m illion. But his m ost fulsom e praise w as reserved for the Royal Air Force, whose 'suprem e efficiency' had 'transform ed the whole situation in Iraq'. Henry Dobbs believed that it w ould be im possible to hold Iraq w ith ground troops alone, a view which Sam uel Hoare considered a 'striking testim ony to the efficacy and econom y of the air as the key force for exercising control in suitable areas of the M iddle East, a subject that opens up a wide vista of future possibilities'. A ir control had am ply fulfilled the hopes of its advocates. Its working w as eased in A ugust 1925 when a League of N ations com m ission confirmed that M osul w as to remain part of Iraq.3L The air force nevertheless had to survive one m ore assau lt on its

[35]

AIR POWER AND C O L O N I A L C O N T R O L

independence. Once again the debate becam e entangled with the ques­ tion of air policing. A com m ittee under Lord Colw yn w as appointed in August 1925 to investigate air force expenditure; while the possible supression of the air force com m and in Iraq w as considered at the sam e time. In October 1925 the Cabinet accepted that, in the event of a fullscale T urkish attack on Iraq, British aircraft could cross the frontier to bomb lines of com m unication and supply. Worthington-Evans requested, however, that a C O C be appointed if m ilitary reinforcements of one division were sent to Iraq. Churchill pointed out that this principle m ight deter an AO C from asking for reinforcements. The C om m ittee of Imperial Defence decided that the first echelon of m ilitary reinforce­ m ents should be under air control, but that a decision about the com m and could be deferred until a second echelon were needed. The Colw yn Report w as presented in December. The War Office and Adm i­ ralty had joined forces to argue that financial savings would be possible if the air force were partitioned. Trenchard pointed out to Colwyn that air control in Iraq had reduced British expenditure in the country from about £23 m illion to around £4 m illion. The Colw yn C om m ittee did not accept that partition would produce great savings in adm inistration. Furthermore, it argued that the dism em berm ent of the RAF would prevent greater savings in future through the 'extended substitution of air power' which depended in turn upon a separate service. After this final vindication Trenchard requested that the future of the air force be assured; and in February 1926 Stanley Baldwin told the House of C om m ons that the government had no intention of reviving the ques­ tion of a separate air arm .40 The survival of the Royal Air Force is best explained in term s of a broader political and econom ic context. It cannot be held that the advocacy of particular individuals w as in itself of decisive importance, but it should still be recognized that the air force w as fortunate in its champions. Pride of place m ust go to Trenchard who, as Chief of the Air Staff from 1919 to 1929, fought with im pressive success for the interests of his service. Although he suffers the reputation of an incoherent prophet, he possessed sound political sense and his unfailing drive could overcome his opponents when com bined with lucid papers drawn up by his staff. He clearly understood the vital need to com prom ise with the Treasury to gain a powerful ally. Churchill, too, w as an enthusiastic apostle of aviation, and the air control schem e w as the original product of his fertile mind. He had begun to learn to fly in 1914, gave up at his w ife's request, resum ed his lessons in 1919 then finally abandoned the attem pt after a near-fatal crash. But his well-attested powers of formal oratory, often deployed on behalf of the Air M inistry, did m uch to silence parliamentary critics. Churchill accurately measured the bounda-

IRA Q AND THE S U R V I V A L OF THE RAF

ries of the politically possible, and had the good sense not to overstep them. He felt genuine regret at giving up his post as A ir M inister in early 1921. Beatty was a formidable opponent, but he w as well m atched by the com bination of Trenchard and Churchill. Henry Wilson w as too intem ­ perate and outspoken to m ake a good politician, and he w as outm a­ noeuvred tim e after tim e by Trenchard. Lam ing Worthington-Evans, who replaced Churchill at the War Office, im pressed his colleagues with his w illingness to hear all points of view but - as Philip Chetwode, the D CIGS, observed - 'he does not carry so m any guns as W inston in the Cabinet'. The air force w as also able to win converts to its cause, and the support of influential figures such as Arnold Wilson, Percy Cox, Henry Dobbs, Aylm er Haldane and Lords Weir and Balfour eased the progress of the air control schem e.41 If air policing w as the salvation of the Royal Air Force, air power w as also 'the m idwife of m odem Iraq'. Had the air control schem e not offered a cheap but effective alternative to m ilitary occupation, it is likely that the British presence would have been curbed or ended, the Arab King­ dom would have been stillborn and the reviving power of Turkey would have engulfed the M osul and possibly the Baghdad and Basra vilayets. The air control schem e more than fulfilled its financial prom ise. In the fiscal year 1921-22 British expenditure in Iraq totalled £23.36 m illion; in 1922-23, the first year of air control, this fell dram atically to £7.81 m illion; and by 1926-27 it w as no more than £3.90 m illion. The last regular infantry battalion was withdrawn in 1929. Sam uel Hoare visited Iraq again, and he reported in February 1927 that m ilitary aviation w as 'the key that closes the door on disorder and insecurity' in that country. The Air M inistry remained reponsible for both internal and external defence until the end of the m andate in October 1932, although the number of air force squadrons gradually declined from eight at the beginning of air control to four by the tim e of independence. The RAF defeated the Ikhwan raiders in the South-W estern D esert in the later 1920s; flew dem onstrations over the Euphrates towns during the Iraqi general strike of July 1931; and bombed the villages of Kurdish rebels under Sheikh Ahm ad of Barzan in 1931 -32. After 1932 the RAF officially ceased to help the Iraqi government m aintain internal security, but its continued presence, ostensibly for im perial purposes, was undoubtedly a powerful deterrent to rebellion.42.

Conclusion The survival of the Royal Air Force w as intim ately involved with air policing in Iraq. After the Great War the need of the C oalition govem-

137]

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m ent to restore Britain's econom ic postion made cuts in public expen­ diture imperative; and the need to m aintain dom estic popularity en­ sured that service estim ates were the first target for the axe. The Adm iralty and the War Office repeatedly tried to secure the partition of the Royal Air Force and the restoration of its component parts to the older services; and their attacks upon the Air M inistry were usually argued on financial grounds. The schem e for the air control of M esopo­ tam ia w as conceived by Churchill as an instrum ent for his own political advancement; it w as adopted by Trenchard as a m eans to ensure the survival of the air force; and it w as im plem ented by the British govern­ m ent to save money without sacrificing oil-rich M iddle Eastern terri­ tory. Iraq, however, w as not merely a helpless victim of im perialism , unable to influence the evolution of strategic policy. The urgent need for a solution to the M esopotam ian im passe w as underlined by the tribal rebellion of 1920, which was defeated only after the deployment of a hundred thousand troops and the expenditure of further m illions of pounds. The elevation of an Arab m onarch w as intended to reduce the threat posed by dissident nationalists to the British occupation, and hence to provide the political precondition for a reduction in m ilitary spending. Air policing, 'control without occupation', w as the m ilitary concom m itant of political rule through a collaborative Sunni elite. T his dual system of indirect im perialism w as the product of a com plex relationship in which the m akers of British policy were merely one set of actors am ong many.

[38]

C H A P T E R THREE

The extension of air control

First, we are all of us imperialists, and wish to see the empire defended as securely as possible. Second, we are all taxpayers, so we want the defence to be as economical as possible. Wing-Commander C. Edmonds, lecturing to the Royal United Services Institution, 12 December 1923.' Edmonds, in the lecture quoted above, highlighted a central dilem m m a of post-war im perialism : the contradiction between econom y and secu­ rity. Air policing lay at the very heart of this problem, and it offered a com pelling solution - a way of holding the m argins of Empire without straining the m etropolitan economy. The policing role of m ost political m om ent carried out by the Royal Air Force during the 1920s w as to m aintain the power of the Arab kingdom s in Transjordan and Iraq; but aeroplanes also helped to dom i­ nate other populations under British sway. Schem es of air control sim ilar to that practised in M esopotam ia were set up in the Palestine M andate in 1922 and in the Aden Protectorate six years later. Bombers were active at various tim es against rioters in Egypt, tribesm en on the Frontier, pastoralists in the Southern Sudan and nom ads in the Som ali hinterland. The air force intervened against organized workers in the British class struggle and against rebels fighting for Irish independence. A s the Treasury im posed strict lim its upon m ilitary spending, each of the three services fought hard against the others for a larger share of a sm aller whole, so the Air M inistry tried to extend the geographical lim its of air policing to gain prestige, influence and funds. T his chapter describes and explains the regional pattem of air force success and failure. Each imperial territory in which there was an air force is discussed in turn.

[39]

AIR POWER AN D C O L O N I A L C O N T R O L

Great Britain and Ireland Britain probably cam e closer to revolution im m ediately after the Great War than at any other tim e in m odem history. W orking-class conscripts returning from the front accepted poverty or unem ploym ent more reluctantly than before; the eclipse of the European empires dram ati­ cally showed that present political form s were not im m utable; the econom y still suffered from the afterm ath of war; strikes were frequent; and a sm all but active C om m unist Party w as formed. The pervasive anxieties of the ruling class som etim es m ounted to panic. In January 1920, for example, the M inister of Transport, Eric Geddes, believed that a 'revolutionary outbreak' impended in the spring, 'when a definite attem pt m ay be m ade to seize the reins of Governm ent'. An uprising which coincided w ith an industrial crisis such as a m iners' strike might, he suggested, 'win the support of the unthinking m ass of labour, exasperated as the latter is by the increasing cost and difficulty of living'. H is Cabinet colleagues and their m ilitary advisors shared his outlook. The arm ed services, although them selves not fully reliable, were used to uphold the social and political order. The extensive em ploym ent of the RAF during this period has not yet attracted m uch notice from historians, who perhaps have wrongly assum ed, like Anthony Clayton, that the Air Staff 'very firm ly said that its aircraft could not be used in police action for cases of disturbance in Britain except in a general reconaissance role'.2 A s early as D ecem ber 1917 aircraft dropped leaflets urging aero­ engine workers in Coventry to end their strike. During the 1919 rail strike the equivalent of seven air force squadrons flew urgent govern­ m ent despatches to seventy-six centres in Britain, m aintained contact w ith the police and bolstered ruling-class morale by distributing copies of T h e T im e s to the provincial adm inistration. In January 1920Trenchard w as asked to release air force volunteers to m an essential services in the event of widespread strikes. Trenchard was reluctant, as he felt that the armed forces should be concentrated for 'suppressing disorder' rather than being dispersed as emergency workers. Besides, the RAF w as then 'com posed largely of young and untrained m en' whose obedience could not be entirely relied upon. Trenchard relented after Churchill per­ suaded him that a strike by the Triple Alliance (of coal miners, dockers and railwaymen) would not be a mere industrial dispute but 'an attem pt to overthrow the state'. The use of volunteer strike breakers, however, involved the risk that such m en m ight suddenly refuse to perform further work; but it w as discovered that m em bers of the arm ed forces could not be legally ordered to perform strike-breaking duties in normal

[40]

THE E X T E N S I O N OF AIR C O N T R O L

circum stances. The law w as accordingly changed and the 1920 Emer­ gency Powers Act sanctioned the desired action.3 The clim ate of fear encouraged the growth of extrem e proposals. In early 1920 Trenchard drafted a paper which discussed the possible use of aircraft to suppress 'industrial disturbances or risings' in 'settled countries' such as India, Egypt, Ireland and England. Trenchard ac­ knowledged that the aeroplane w as 'at present an inaccurate weapon' which could not carry out bomb or m achine gun attacks in urban areas w ithout grave risk to innocent people, and he recommended that the use of aircraft in industrial disputes be confined, for som e years at least, to reconnaissance and com m unication. He was, however, reluctant to advise that aeroplanes should never be used to suppress urban unrest. When murder and arson were being com m itted in cities where 'a m ajority of the inhabitants are definitely hostile' - he did not say how to identify such cities - w ritten orders should be able to sanction 'a lim ited am ount of bom bing and m achine gun fire'. Churchill w as horrified at the indiscreet suggestion that the Royal Air Force m ight turn its w eapons on British workers, and he asked that the references to 'England' and Ireland be removed and never referred to again - at least in writing. In May, Churchill approved a m ore moderate version of the paper, which m ade it clear that aircraft w eapons would not be employed in Britain unless a state of war were held to exist or in the unlikely event that rioters were using aeroplanes them selves.4 The arrangem ents worked out between 1919 and 1921 were tested during the General Strike of M ay 1926. Although this w as the largest industrial crisis so far, the dem ands of the workers were defensive, there w as little prospect of m ilitary disobedience and Trenchard w as confi­ dent of victory. A co-ordinating body, known as 'C risis', w as set up at the Air M inistry. The m ain task of the air force during the General Strike w as to deliver conservative newspapers to the provinces. By 13 M ay the heavy bombers of 9 and 58 Squadrons had carried 1,377,000 copies of the B ritish G a zette, besides a few short runs of T h e T im e s and the Su n d a y T im e s. Certain newsagents in the so-called 'Red' tow ns of the north-east dared not sell the B ritish G a zette for fear of proletarian reprisal, so the papers were dropped from the air in bundles by light bombers. The m ajority of urgent government m ails were delivered by the air force, which also furnished volunteer strike breakers who m anned steam engines, drove underground trains, m aintained power stations and arrested 'prom inent com m unists'. Trenchard had good reason to be pleased with the work of the air force during the strike, and he received letters of fulsom e congratulation from several railw ay m anagers. After 1926 the state saw little need for the air force to intervene in dom estic disputes, although the bom bing of the warships held by m utineers at

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Invergordon in Septem ber 1931 w as briefly considered and w isely eschew ed.5 From 1919 to 1921 the British Army and the Royal Irish Constabulary waged an often bitter and som etim es brutal war against nationalist guerrillas in Ireland. The conflict aroused passionate feeling in Great Britain; when it became clear that neither m ilitary nor political m eans could defeat the rebellion, an arm istice w as agreed in July 1921. By the peace treaty of 1922 m ost of Ireland gained dom inion status, while six counties in the m ainly Protestant north-east becam e a British province. Charles Townshend, in his study T h e B ritish C am paign in Ire la n d has a brief but thoughtful discussion of the non-violent use of air power during that war. H istorians, however, have so far ignored the lim ited use of aircraft w eapons by the British in the conflict. Besides Townshend, D avid Killingray and Anthony Clayton both explicitly deny that British aircraft used their weapons in Ireland.6 By the sum m er of 1920 there were two air force squadrons in Ireland, working w ith the army, and the High C om m and considered a third unit necessary. M aurice Hankey doubted whether aircraft would prove valuable in Ireland, but events showed that his scepticism w as not entirely justified. Aircraft patrols searched roads, railways, canals and bridges for evidence of trenches or damage; protected armoured cars from am bush; and deterred illegal drilling by the Irish Republican Army. When British detachm ents in the south-west of Ireland were cut off, their m ail w as delivered by aeroplane, and leaflets which described wanted men were dropped from aircraft over tow ns and villages. But poor serviceability hampered air force operations, only half of the thirtysix m achines in Ireland being fit to fly in September 1920. During an inspection at Fermoy the follow ing April a dem onstration air attack w as carried out over the aerodrome. T h e m oral effect on civilians working in the cam p appeared to be m ost satisfactory.' Captured docum ents and Republican journals bore w itness to the im pact of reconnaissance aircraft, for rebel troops were continually urged to take m easures for concealm ent. Aerodrom es were interm ittently attacked by rebels, without success, but m achines which had been forced to land were som etim es captured and burned.7 Lord French, when he com m anded in Ireland, had pressed for aircraft to carry weapons: his request w as refused but others like it followed. In July 1920 Churchill suggested that outlaw ed Republican drill parties should be regarded as rebel gatherings, and he therefore saw no objection to dispersing them by air attack, 'using of course no more force than is necessary to scatter and stam pede them'. The British m ilitary elite were frustrated by the insurgents, who seem ed ubiquitous yet alw ays able to elude lum bering arm y patrols. By August, the m ilitary in Ireland began

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TH E E X T E N S I O N OF AIR C O N T R O L

to press more strongly for the use of aircraft w eapons to be sanctioned; they argued, for instance, that rebels who had sprung an am bush upon ground forces m ight be caught and defeated by rapid air attack, w ithout risk to innocent life. The speed of the bomber w as tempting, for it seem ed to offer one m eans of nullifying the decisive m obility of the insurgents. The British Commander-in-Chief in Ireland, General N ev­ ille Macready, also urged that air attack be perm itted when aircrew could 'clearly distinguish' rebels who were attacking British troops. These requests illustrate a typical feature of internal security: the tension w ithin the ruling class between those anxious to solve by m ilitary m eans w hat they see as an essentially m ilitary problem, and others m ore concerned at the possible political costs of violence used to excess.8 The divide did not alw ays fall neatly between politicians and m ilitary men. Trenchard consistently opposed the violent use of air power in Ireland. He believed that warning leaflets m ight fall in the wrong place and that pilots could not w ith certainty tell the hostile from the peaceful. The death of innocent civilians, he feared, would cause bittem ess and m ight lead to reprisals against crews who had been forced to land. One also suspects that Trenchard w as unw illing to see squad­ rons violently employed in a theatre in which there w as no prospect of air control. But in M arch 1921, after deliberation, the Cabinet sanc­ tioned the use of arm ed aeroplanes in circum stances they carefully defined. Aircraft were to be arm ed only after action had been requested by com m anders of brigades or higher form ations, and they were to be flown by the m ost trusted pilots over rural areas, but not over towns. Aeroplanes were to attack only bodies actually fighting government troops, or those which had just fought them or were clearly preparing to do so. Before the arm istice, several armed patrols were carried out in Ireland and weapons were occasionally used; but these arm ed patrols constituted only a sm all portion of flying hours (10 out of 338 in April 1921) and probably caused no casualties.9

Palestine British policy-m akers proved m ore w illing to adopt a strategy of air policing in Palestine than in Ireland, a difference which is better explained by their racial attitudes than by their political wisdom . Palestine, long an O ttom an province, had been conquered during the G reat War by an allied arm y com m anded by General Allenby. After the arm istice the country w as placed under the m ilitary rule of O ETA - the Occupied Enemy Territories Adm inistration. The com m unal conflict caused by Z ionist colonization has dom inated Palestinian history since

[43]

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the end of the Great War. By the Balfour D eclaration of Novem ber 1917, the British government prom ised to look favourably upon the creation of a Jewish hom eland in Palestine. Z ionist hopes were roused by the expulsion of the Turks; but the local population feared - justifiably, as it turned out - that an influx of settlers w ould lead to the loss of their lands and the creation of a Z ionist state. When Winston Churchill, one of the leading non-Jewish Zionists, visited Palestine in M arch 1921, the Haifa Congress of Palestinian Arabs petitioned for an end to Jewish imm igration, the abolition of British support for the N ational Hom e and the creation of a representative government. Politically articulate dem ands such as these could not be contained merely by bombing. Palestine was unique am ong the territories subject to air control, in that even the Air M inistry eventually acknowledged that the system had failed.10 In the sum m er of 1920 a civil adm inistration replaced the m ilitary regime. The Arabs violently resisted Jewish settlem ent; in April 1920 there were riots in Jerusalem , and in M ay the following year the city of Jaffa w as troubled by more serious disturbances in which ninety five people were killed. The British adm inistration nevertheless hoped that political concessions and econom ic progress would m ellow the Arab fear of Zionism , and allow the expensive garrison to be reduced. In Novem ber 1921 there were 7,670 im perial troops in the country, including three battalions of foot and three regim ents of horse, at a yearly cost of about three and a half m illion pounds. The problem of com bining econonm y and security was, on a sm aller scale, like that the British faced in M esopotam ia. Churchill proposed a sim ilar solution, and a conference of m inisters approved his schem e to replace m ost of the im perial troops with a local Gendarmerie, armoured cars and an air force. The establishm ent of air control in Palestine, unlike in Iraq, provoked no lengthy political controversy, for the War Office did not consider Palestine to be strategically significant, and the survival of the air force would not be decided by the deployment of a single squadron. The Air M inistry took over the defence of Palestine in M ay 1922 and an air officer assum ed com m and. By 1925 the garrison had been progres­ sively reduced to a single cavalry regiment, a com pany of armoured cars and a squadron of aircraft; and m ilitary expenditure had been cut by more than half. During the Jaffa riots of May 1921 aircraft had dropped bom bs to protect Jewish settlem ents from Arab raiders, but by the mid1920s the air force w as m ainly tasked with patrolling the frontier against Bedouin incursions.11 Lord Plumer, who replaced Sir Herbert Sam uel as High C om m ission­ er in 1925, w as confident that the risk of serious com m unal disturbance had receded. Under pressure to m ake further cuts in m ilitary spending,

[44]

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he was instructed to review and reorganize Palestinian defence. D espite Sam uel's concern, Plum er disbanded the Palestinian Gendarmerie, created a new Frontier Force to serve in Transjordan, and removed the last remaining regular troops: the defence of Palestine now rested entirely upon police, armoured cars and aeroplanes. These arrange­ m ents were tested and found wanting in 1929. A decline in Jewish im m igration w as reversed in 1928, and the reviving fortunes of the N ational Home inflam ed Arab fears. Heightened com m unal tension w as followed in the sum m er of 1929 by a week of widespread Arab attacks on Jewish settlem ents, more than two hundred people being killed in the pogroms and subsequent repression. The m ethods of air control were quite unable to police this urban rioting; three battalions of British foot were rushed to Palestine; and a brigadier-general assum ed temporary com m and of all forces in the country. Although aircraft alone could not control the crisis, they patrolled and protected outlying Jewish settlem ents, machine-gunned looters, watched the frontier against Arab raids and flew infantry reinforcements from Egypt. But it w as clear that air control had failed to contain the com m unal conflict, which could only be policed by troops on the ground.12 The collapse of the present defensive arrangements prompted an im m ediate review of future policy. In Decem ber 1929, the Chiefs of Staff noted that com m unal incidents were likely to continue, but believed these could be contained by efficient intelligence, an improved police force and a garrison of at least two battalions of British foot. The War Office made a determined attem pt to regain control of Palestinian defence, because to do so would be to dem onstrate publicly that air control had failed at least once: a dem onstration which m ight prove a useful weapon to resist Air M inistry encroachm ents elsewhere. A subcom m ittee under Lord Passfield, appointed to consider the strength, com position and control of the Palestine garrison, recommended that the two battalions be retained (subject to annual review by the C om m it­ tee of Imperial Defence) but w as unable to resolve the differences between the Air M inistry and the War Office over departm ental responsiblity. The question w as passed to the Cabinet. They decided that the Air M inistry should remain answerable for defence, but gave the Senior M ilitary Officer the right of direct access to the High C om m issioner on all security m atters: this com prom ise solution remained in force until 1936. In Novem ber 1932 the strength of the garrison w as finally fixed at two battalions. These new arrangements m arked a significant retreat from a policy of undiluted air substitution .13 Palestine was relatively tranquil in the early 1930s, but from 1933 the growth of m ilitant anti-Sem itism in Germ any and Poland brought thousands of Jewish refugees to the country. M inor concessions to the

AIR POWER AN D C O L O N I A L C O N T R O L

Arabs did not satisfy their dem and for independence or m ollify their fear of the N ational Home. After interm ittent riots, the Arab N ational C om m ittee, formed at N ablus in April 1936, declared a general strike which becam e effective by the following May. In the sum m er, armed bands began attacks on com m unications and on the oil pipeline to Haifa. The rising w as the m ost prolonged and widespread resistance to Zion­ ism that had yet taken place, but this tim e Arab violence w as directed prim arily at the government rather than at the Jews. The guerrillas, however, were unable to resist the large m ilitary forces deployed against them, nor could the strikers sustain the indefinite disruption of eco­ nom ic life. The rebellion w as abandoned in mid-October, after perhaps 1,000 Arabs had been killed.14 Three Royal Air Force squadrons were deployed during the revolt, and these worked closely with ground troops against the hill bands. Air ViceM arshal Peirse (the AOC Palestine) w ished to introduce a whole series of repressive m easures, including m artial law, censorship, forced labour and curfew. He also believed that his bombers, if they destroyed certain villages and m ade 'a good exam ple7of N ablus, could 'cow the country7. Peirse was, however, isolated w ithin the British policy-m aking body. Arthur Wauchope (the High Com m issioner) believed that bombing populated areas, even after their evacuation, would cause suffering to the innocent, create intense bittem ess and perhaps prolong the rebel­ lion. The Cabinet agreed; they refused to sanction the proposals made by Peirse, and instead decided to rely still more on infantry. An extra battalion had been sent to Palestine as early as 10 May,- by 7 June there were eight battalions in the country, organized in two brigades, and this force w as expanded to divisional size by early September. By then it w as clear that yet more troops were needed, so the Cabinet decided to send a second division to Palestine, replace Peirse by Lieutenant-General John D ill and transfer responsibility for defence from the Air M instry to the War Office. The skeletal garrison provided for by air control w as too w eak to suppress the more developed form s of resistance, such as the general strike, employed by the Palestinian insurgents. Yet while undoubtedly m ore selective than the rough justice of the bomber, the violence employed by the arm y w as occasionally excessive or careless. Peirse seem s to have resented his rem oval and regarded it as a personal slight, although Air Vice-Marshal Brooke-Popham noted 'we all realized that the only logical thing to do w as to put an Army officer in supreme com m and7.15 The end of air control did not m ean the end of air force operations in Palestine. After a short period of relative calm during the winter, num erous sm all-scale rebel attacks began in spring 1937. Fighting was widespread by the follow ing year. Aircraft dropped supplies to Army

[46)

THE E X T E N S I O N OF AIR C O N T R O L

units and offered close support during operations on the ground. Lieu­ tenant-General Wavell, who com m anded in Palestine from Septem ber 1937 to M arch 1938, w as particularly im pressed by the speed w ith which the air force answered arm y calls for help, despite difficult terrain and poor weather. But British operations in Palestine from 1936 until the end of the m andate twelve years later depended prim arily upon a large infantry garrison.16

India The central importance of India to im perial defence between 1919 and 1939 is reflected both in the size of its garrison - then the largest in the British Empire - and in the am ount of tim e devoted to it during the m eetings of the C om m ittee of Imperial Defence. The N orth West Frontier w as the land border in the Empire across which invasion (by Afghan or Soviet troops) w as m ost feared. But the defence of British India w as also a m atter of internal security: the problem of m aintaining British power in the face of tribal unrest in the m ountains and nation­ alist agitation in the cities and plains. The Air M inistry persistently argued that the Royal Air Force should be given m ore responsiblity for Indian defence. The bomber, they claim ed, could defeat invading Afghan colum ns in the m ountain passes, could carry the war to Afghan cities and, above all, could police the m ountain regions of the Frontier. Although aircraft were briefly used against urban unrest, the Air M in­ istry did not vigorously press their claim s to this role; hence this section m ainly deals w ith the security of the Frontier.17 British aircraft had first been engaged on the Frontier in 1915 and had prom inently figured in later cam paigns. In June 1922 a subcom m ittee on Indian M ilitary Requirem ents noted that aircraft m ight allow 'consid­ erable econom ies' in Frontier warfare, and recom m ended that a senior air officer visit the subcontinent to study the use of the air force. Air Vice-Marshal John Salm ond spent the sum m er in India preparing a report on the role, organization and adm inistration of the Royal Air Force in that country. Salm ond found that a shortage of essential spares - the result of government econom ies - had crippled the front-line squadrons and that pilots were rapidly losing confidence in their m a­ chines. The two squadrons at Peshawar had between them only one aircraft fit to fly, and even this had a large hole in the wing. For operations beginning on 6 April, four squadrons had been able to m uster only twelve aircraft, and their thirty-five sorties had resulted in eleven forced landings, none due to enem y action. Salm ond advised that the air force be given two more squadrons, better buildings and m aintenance facili­ ties, a separate budget and a definite role in the security of the Frontier

[47]

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and the Punjab. The C-in-C India, Lord Rawlinson, accepted m ost of these proposals, but he thought it would be 'm adness' to risk reducing the Field Army until the effectiveness of air policing on the Frontier had been proved by experim ent.18 After Salm ond's tour, the m orale and efficiency of the air force in India began to steadily improve. The arm y became more sym pathetic, but the Air Staff remained sure that discussions about the role of air power on the Frontier could m ake no further advance until independent bombing had been widely tested in practice. Such a test w ould probably be held, whether the Indian General Staff liked it or not, the m om ent serious trouble began somewhere on the Frontier far from any imperial garrison. D espite the general settlem ent with the W aziristan tribes, som e sections had remained recalcitrant, and after the government of India had sanctioned the use of independent air power the General Staff agreed, in February 1925, that the air force could run its own campaign. The raids against the M ahsuds from M arch to M ay 1925 were the first independent large-scale air operations on the Frontier. The squadrons involved logged more than 2,000 active service hours and dropped more than 150 tons of bombs. Although m ost British observers agreed the operations had been successful, opinion about their wider significance tended to divide along service lines. Sir C laud Jacob (the C-in-C India) believed that air and ground forces acting in com bination would have achieved a sim ilar result more quickly: Edward Ellington (the AOC) claim ed that aircraft had proved more sparing of m en and money than other form s of punitive force. Ellington undoubtedly had a fair point, but the clash between the army and the air force would not be resolved quite so sim ply.19 Trenchard w as delighted by the outcom e of the 1925 campaign, which showed (he argued) that the air force could police the Frontier alone. He drew up a schem e for air control, in which the six air force squadrons in India would be increased to ten, and corresponding reduc­ tions made to the forty-six battalions then in the Frontier Province. T his w as never im plem ented as a whole. Instead the air force took part in a series of sm all-scale wars over the next twelve years, during which its role in Frontier defence w as gradually increased. In June 1927, for example, a M ohmand lashkar - a force of tribal warriors - w as dispersed without loss to the air force, and in N ovem ber the following year intensive bombing forced two M ahsud sections to surrender their Hindu captives: in both cases action by ground troops would have been laborious and costly. In N ovem ber 1929 Trenchard drew up a second schem e for the control of the North West Frontier by air, in which twenty-five or thirty battalions of Covering Troops would be replaced by five or six extra squadrons. T h is controversial proposal would have led

[48]

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to widespread unem ploym ent am ong Indian Army officers and it made little headway. Both sides in the debate tended to interpret the opera­ tional evidence to suit their prejudices. The government of India remained unw illing to risk large-scale reductions to the Frontier Army, and preferred an expensive policy of road building and m ilitary occupa­ tion.20 The failure of the air force to gain control of Frontier defence in part reflected the constitutional statu s of the RAF w ithin the Indian hierar­ chy. The Comm ander-in-Chief of the Indian Arm y w as the sole m ilitary advisor to the government. Trenchard w ished the Air Officer C om ­ manding to have direct access to the Viceroy, which w as granted in January 1923. Where Frontier operations, such as those from January to M arch 1932, involved no ground troops, authority w as som etim es tem porarily delegated to air officers. But the Air M inistry remained dissatisfied with the statu s of the air force in India, which w as not recognized in practice as a service equal to the army. The fifteen air force staff at D elhi contrasted with the hundreds of officers at Arm y Head­ quarters; Arthur Harris lam ented that even arm y pack m ule transport preceded his squadron on parades, which m ade 'the going som ew hat heavy for us'. The chiefs of the four m ain arm y com m ands ranked fourteenth in the Indian order of precedence, while the AO C cam e a lowly twenty-third - equal to the Vice-Chairm an of the Imperial C ouncil of Agricultural Research. An agreement in M arch 1937 gave slightly more weight to Indian air force views, but this, com plained the Air M inistry, w as not observed by senior arm y officers. W ithout an effective voice in decision-m aking the air force w as unlikely to achieve the im plem entation of air control. In July 1939 the Air M inistry despondently concluded that 'the functions and statu s of the C om ­ m ander in Chief derive from a tim e before there w as an Indian air force'.21 Trenchard's am bitious N ovem ber 1929 paper, which suggested that the air force could control the Frontier alone, unsurprisingly provoked rather than stilled arm y hostility to air substitution. The Indian govern­ m ent reviewed its tribal control policy after the 1930 Peshawar distur­ bances, and concluded that aircraft had clearly dem onstrated their deterrent powers; but growing unrest in India postponed further debate. R elations within the High C om m and were more harm onious by the mid-1930s, although John Slessor lam ented that the 1936 operations dem onstrated inter-service co-operation only in the narrowest sense. There w as growing concern toward the end of the decade at the obsolescence of Indian air force equipment, which Cyril N ew all (the CAS) com plained could not be modernized while the Arm y absorbed ninety three per cent of the Indian defence budget. A series of investiga-

[49]

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tions, which culm inated in the report presented in January 1939 by an Expert C om m ittee under Lord Chatfield, confirmed that the air force w as largely obsolete, and advised that it be modernized. Air M arshal Courtney (the AO C India) claim ed that the m ost effective use of the Indian air force could not be m ade until the m achinery of com m and had been altered. The Cabinet began to discuss the co-ordination of Frontier defence in the sum m er, but no definite decisions were taken before the start of the European war.22

South-West Arabia The British had governed the city of Aden since 1839, but even by the 1920s the im perial presence in the hinterland assum ed the form only of a loose protectorate. Aden w as valued chiefly as a naval anchorage, as the site of a powerful w ireless telegraph and above all as a fuelling station for m ajor warships. The defeat of the O ttom an Empire in the G reat War had removed the m ain strategic threat to the British Protectorate, and the guiding im perial aim w as now sim ply to prevent other powers gaining a foothold in South-West Arabia. The Protectorate itself w as m ostly arid and sparsely populated; the more fertile highlands to the north were controlled by the Iman of Yemen, the head of the Zeidi sect of Islam and the m ain local rival to British predominance. The Iman had gained effective independence after a long struggle with the Turks. He consistently refused to recognize the boundary agreed between the O ttom ans and the British in 1905, and he claim ed the entire Protectorate as his rightful domain. In pursuit of this am bition his troops interm it­ tently encroached upon tribal territory protected by the British, which m ade for continuous tension and frequent skirm ishes. The British responded by adopting in the Aden Protectorate the sam e system of air control already tested in the Middle Eastern M andates.23 The Cairo Conference of M arch 1921 recommended that a flight of aircraft be sent to Aden to resist Zeidi encroachm ents. The unit w as operational by October and im m ediately strengthened the British posi­ tion on the Protectorate borders. By M ay 1922 Trenchard concluded that the garrison could be reduced from four to three battalions and 'hoped that in due course Aden w ill become an air controlled station just like Iraq'. The British Resident, Major-General Scott, believed that the 'invaluable' presence of a 'highly efficient' air force unit had successfully secured the frontier. In February 1923 it w as accordingly decided to withdraw one Indian battalion, and the Yemen infantry battalion w as later disbanded. The Aden flight w as interm ittently active not just against Zeidi raiders but also against Protectorate tribes who obstructed

[50]

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trade routes. In 1925, however, it w as found that air power could not contain encroachm ents far from Aden itself; there were not enough forward airstrips in the Protectorate, and the Bristol Fighter aircraft were insufficient in numbers, range and bomb load to protect the furthest frontiers. The Air M inistry believed that a flight of m odem day-bombers should replace the obsolete m achines, and the Resident cam e to accept that only attacks on Sana - the capital of Yem en - w ould convince the Iman 'that we m ean business'. The Air M inistry, however, soon began to press for an entire squadron to be sent to Aden and for a further battalion to be withdrawn.24 The debates about the defence of Aden were m ade more urgent by the failure of a diplom atic m ission to Sana in January 1926. The Chiefs of Staff concluded that a conventional land cam paign against the Iman could only regain the lost territory w ith a force of one division, costing between six and ten m illion pounds. Com pared w ith this, the air force proposals were financially attractive. Under pressure from the Treasury, the Cabinet decided the cost of the Aden garrison had to be reduced and began to contem plate replacing one battalion w ith an air force squadron. Trenchard w as at first confident his argum ents w ould carry the day, but by February 1927 privately confessed that Aden 'is going to give m e more trouble than I thought'. Trenchard appealed to the exam ple of air control elsewhere and noted the proven inability of infantry to resist Zeidi en­ croachm ents. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, W inston Churchill, agreed w ith him, and ridiculed the idea, enshrined in current policy, that an infantry garrison w as needed in case of a surprise raid by 200 Japanese m arines. Investigations by a Treasury C om m ittee showed, however, that substantial savings in defence were im possible unless both battal­ ions at Aden were withdrawn. M eanwhile, a squadron from Iraq had been transferred to the Protectorate, where it w as operational by M arch 1927; the existing flight w as then disbanded. D espite War Office and Adm iralty opposition, the Cabinet decided in October 1927 to withdraw both battalions from Aden and rely instead for defence upon the air force squadron, three armoured cars and a few hundred local levies. The Air M inistry took over the defence in January 1928, and by 1930 the regular infantry were all withdrawn.25 The squadron at Aden encouraged the British to deal more firm ly w ith the Iman. When the Yem enis seized two tribal sheikhs in treaty relations with the British, the Iman at once received an ultim atum which threatened bombing. Air raids were carried out against Kataba in February and, after an interlude in which bad weather prevented flying, were resum ed in March. The Iman soon asked for a truce and agreed to release his captives. The Cabinet 'expressed satisfaction at this further vindication of the policy of using the Royal Air Force'. The Iman seem ed

AIR POWER AN D C O L O N I A L C O N T R O L

anxious for a general settlem ent but, when he later asked for a postpone­ m ent of negotiations, he w as told to evacuate the fort of Dala, held by Yemeni forces in the Protectorate, as evidence of his good faith. When he failed to do so, aircraft dem onstrated over the m ain tow ns of Yemen and issued clear warnings that D ala would be bombed. Intensive raids against the fort in June and July forced the Zeidi garrison to withdraw, allow ing the Am ir of Dala, eight years an exile in Lahej, to reoccupy his capital. M aurice Hankey was m oved to tell Trenchard that he was 'trem endously im pressed with this very fine illustration of the methods on which you have spoken to me so often. T his exam ple is a trium phant vindication of your theories'.26 With the evacuation of D ala the defence of Aden became more secure. The sm all police force needed the help of the Aden Protectorate Levies to control M uslim - Jewish rioting in M ay 1932, but relations with the Iman began to improve. The Zeidis evacuated Awdhali territory under threat of bombing in 1933, when the Cabinet w as prepared to sanction attacks on Imanic territory if need be, and in February 1934 negotiations at Sana resulted in a treaty which recognized the statu s quo along the frontier. After that, air force bombers were employed m ainly against Protectorate tribes who tried to levy road tolls. Air and ground reinforce­ m ents were sent to Aden in 1935 during the Abyssinian crisis and the arm y exploited this opportunity to revive the question of control. Although an air officer remained in overall command, a senior army officer was sent out in February 1936 to take charge of all regular troops, including the Punjabi battalion which had recently arrived. But the War Office were unable to reverse defensive arrangem ents which had proved so conspicuously successful in practice.27

Africa The Royal Air Force never dom inated the defence of British colonial Africa to the extent that it dom inated the defence of the mandated territories of the M iddle East. Aircraft had been violently employed against Egyptian rioters and Bedouin in 1919, but Trenchard denied that substitution was practical in Egypt. In late 1921 he told the Geddes C om m ittee that, as the Egyptian population w as concentrated in large towns, only ground troops could m aintain internal security, although the present garrison seem ed to him 'excessive'. Egypt w as one of the m ain intersections of the imperial air routes, so aircraft were on hand to police the distur­ bances of Decem ber 1921 and January 1922. Aeroplanes patrolling overhead apparently deterred Egyptian crowds from acts of violence or sabotage, and the flight of a m achine from Cairo to Assw an stabilized

Map 2: North-East Africa 153]

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'the trend of native opinion towards peace and quiet' - or so the Interior M inistry believed. Because the population of Upper Egypt w as concen­ trated in a narrow strip beside the N ile, a patrol along the river would be seen and discussed by a huge number of people. But the Air M inistry recognized that the role of the air force in Egypt would remain secondary to that of the arm y.28 The dram atic intervention of the RAF against the Som ali Dervishes in 1920 became one of the m ost potent argum ents for air substitution elsewhere, yet Som aliland itself w as never brought under air control. During an affray in February 1922 a British captain of the C am el Corps w as shot dead and two aircraft from Aden were despatched to Som ali­ land to overawe the tribesm en responsible. The Governor reported that the effect of the dem onstration had been 'electrical' and asked that the two aeroplanes be kept in the country, a request granted by the Air M inistry. Som aliland w as poorly m apped and rugged in places, but w as otherwise suitable country for air force operations. The aircraft, a reserve detachm ent of the Aden flight, flew only enough to remain serviceable and give practice to pilots. Trenchard did not include Som aliland in his controversial Decem ber 1929 paper on T h e F u lle r E m p lo y m e n t o f A ir P o w er in Im p e ria l D efen ce, so the Treasury en­ quired whether there w as a financial case for air substitution in the Protectorate. In M arch 1930 the Air Staff responded by preparing a schem e for air control in which four aircraft would replace more than half the existing C am el Corps. It w as found, however, that even this would not produce any yearly savings and would involve considerable capital cost, so the Air M inistry reluctantly concluded that 'the whole problem m ay be too sm all for us'. The air force detachm ent w as withdrawn as Som aliland could be rapidly reinforced in emergency by aircraft from Aden.29 British aircraft were extensively used in the Sudan, starting in 1916 when the Royal Flying Corps helped to suppress the rebellion of Ali Dinar, the Sultan of Darfur. A unit of two aeroplanes w as despatched from Cairo to m ake punitive raids on the G arjak N uer of Sobat D istrict during the first six m onths of 1920. A flight of four aircraft was established at Khartoum in A ugust 1924 during the political crisis of that year and this m ove prompted further discussion of the possible use of aircraft in the Sudan. Sam uel Hoare (the Air M inister) believed that the Sudan was 'em inently suited' to the use of air power: Trenchard w as reluctant to extend the imperial responsibilities of the air force until air control elsewhere was more secure. There were frequent m ilitary operations in the Southern Sudan at this time, but the presence of an entire squadron at Khartoum could only be financially justified if the Sudanese garrison w as reduced by one British battalion. A conference of

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im perial officials at Cairo in M arch 1925 agreed that an air force should be perm anently provided for the Sudan, and accepted Trenchard's proposal that this should be an entire squadron rather than an uneco­ nom ical detached flight. N either the British Treasury nor the Sudanese governm ent would, however, find the necessary funds, so the idea w as tem porarily shelved.30 The question of air power in the Sudan w as soon reopened when the prospects of a M ahdist outbreak and the m easures needed to deal with it were investigated. Am ple warning, it w as thought, w ould be received of any m ajor M ahdist m ovem ent, which in any event would not pose a serious m ilitary danger unless the local Sudan Defence Force grew m utinous at the sam e time. The air force and the arm y differed, however, over the best m eans of securing British power in the country. The General Staff believed that at least one battalion w as needed to garrison Khartoum, and part of a second to secure the lines of com m u­ nication; they thought it undesirable to split units up, so they wanted at least two battalions perm anently stationed in the Sudan, although an increase of the air force to one squadron w as also welcom e. The A ir Staff m aintained that a squadron of bombers based at Khartoum, w ith enough good landing grounds elsewhere, w as the m ost 'visible and convincing proof of British occupation' and could replace one of the regular battal­ ions: other squadrons could be flown from Egypt in an emergency. The C om m ittee which investigated Sudanese defence recom m ended that the Royal Air Force at Khartoum be increased from one flight to one squadron; but they suggested that any reduction of the garrison be reconsidered at a later date.31 These com prom ise recom m endations were discussed by the C om ­ m ittee of Imperial Defence in July 1927. The Governor-General of the Sudan, Sir John Maffrey, did not consider an increase in air force strength at Khartoum to be necessary and claim ed that aeroplanes w ould not appreciably affect the chance of trouble in the country. Sudanese government finance depended upon the cotton crop, whose price w as w ildly fluctuating, and he therefore doubted whether a squadron could be funded locally. Sam uel Hoare em phasized that the flat country of the Sudan w as well suited to air operations. Trenchard had alw ays been lukew arm about detached flights, which were costly to adm inister, and he preferred that the one at Khartoum be withdrawn to Egypt if the funds for a whole squadron could not be found. The C om m ittee recommended that a squadron should be stationed at Khartoum for a year to allow 'a fair and thorough trial' of air power, after which the m atter would be reconsidered. The Cabinet approved, and decided to defray the differ­ ence in cost between the m aintenance of a squadron at hom e and in the Sudan by an interest-free loan to the Sudanese govem em nt.32

AIR POWER AN D C O L O N I A L C O N T R O L

M ilitary policy w as therefore still uncertain when operations against N uer dissidents began in the south. The prophet G w ek Wonding had induced som e Lou N uer to follow him into open hostility to the government. Three com panies of the Sudan Defence Force, supported by one flight of bombers, attacked cattle, dispersed G w ek's adherents and broke organized resistance by mid-January 1928. In Decem ber 1927 som e G arluak N uer attacked and killed a district com m issioner in Bahrel-Ghazal Province, along with a G reek m erchant and sixteen D inka carriers. A sm all government force, assem bled in January 1928, burned the villages and destroyed the cattle of the section who had carried out the raid. The N uer retreated into sw am py country, inaccessible to regular troops, but were bombed into subm ission by aircraft. M ilitary opinion about the value of the air force to these operations tended once more to diverge along service lines. The com m ander of the Lou N uer patrol, for example, believed that preparatory bombing had scattered the warriors and thus prevented ground troops from 'inflicting heavy casu­ alties on the young men...which is the m ost effective manner of punishm ent'. But the com m ander of the air force flight argued that 'air action definitely improved the situation at once, and saved a lot of stupid innocent people from joining in with Gw ek'. The operations did not 'prove' anything, except perhaps that both arm y and air force officers tended to think in term s of the interests of their parent service.33 Sir John Maffrey acknowledged that he had been 'greatly im pressed' by the squadron, whose performance against the N uer had surpassed his expectations. But, in a thoughtful paper, he argued that the internal security of the Sudan should depend upon ground troops whose violence he thought more selective than that of the bomber. Nevertheless, he believed that the British garrison could be reduced by one battalion, once the Sudan w as secure from the return of Egyptian troops. The Air Staff were delighted at this partial conversion to their views but the War Office remained adam ant: one battalion would not suffice. In Decem ber 1928 the C om m ittee of Imperial Defence recommended that both battalions be retained for another six m onths, when the situation would be again reviewed. Trenchard certainly hoped that air control would be established in the Sudan, but in June 1929 he advised the new Air M inister, Lord Thom son, not to indicate this for the tim e being. The air force personnel were living in som e discom fort in temporary accom m o­ dation at Khartoum, but in both July and N ovem ber 1929 a decision w as further postponed. The Air M inistry then seem to have begun to doubt the w isdom of reducing the garrison. A com prom ise w as finally agreed in July 1930, when it w as decided to remove a single com pany of foot to Cyprus and house the air force personnel in the barrack space thus vacated.34

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In his N ovem ber 1929 paper, T h e F u lle r E m p lo y m e n t o f A ir P o w er in Im p e ria l D efen ce, Trenchard suggested that aircraft could replace som e of the six infantry battalions of the King's African Rifles in the defence of British East Africa. A system of m obile air defence in Uganda, Kenya, Tanganyika and Nyasaland, linked to the network of air routes, would be sustained by the air forces of a wider empire. British East Africa w as three-quarters of a m illion square m iles in area, transport by hum an porterage w as slow and the rain badly affected the dism al roads. Aero­ planes, the Air Staff argued, w ould be m uch less hampered than infantry by terrain and climate,- they were fast enough to catch Abyssinian raiders and w ould have a great 'm oral effect' on Africans. They would also be useful for am bulance and cartographic purposes. Trenchard proposed that the King's African Rifles be reduced or even disbanded, and their place taken by two air force squadrons and an auxiliary air unit raised from European settlers. The Air M inistry w as certain that the War Office w ould 'offer strenuous opposition' to these schem es. John Slessor, however, privately adm itted that aircraft m ight be unable to police the A byssinian frontier and w as anxious lest the recent air force failure in Palestine told against further claim s to substitution.35 In March 1932 a 'cruise' of aircraft, com m anded by Arthur Harris, visited Kenya, Tanganyika and Uganda. The visit w as an Air M inistry propaganda exercise intended to im press the white population and im perial adm inistration with the defensive potential of air power. A great effort w as made to ensure the aircraft arrived punctually at each destination to dispel the bad im pression left by the poor tim ekeeping of Imperial Airways. Five m inutes of 'air drill' were carried out upon leaving each aerodrome, and officers of the N ative A dm inistration were taken on flights over their districts. O fficial and public response w as for the m ost part enthusiastic. Sir Joseph Byme (the Governor of Kenya) w as 'very keen' on the air force; Sir George Sym es (the Governor of Tanga­ nyika) had become aware of the potential of air policing while serving as Resident at Aden. M ost Kenyan settlers regarded the King's African Rifles as a w aste of money, and believed that, if they had to, the Kenya Defence Force could 'skin all the niggers in the country in a week', a view with which Harris concurred. The C ivil Secretary of Tanganyika, D ouglas Jardine, w as unusual in being described by Harris as 'very anti air: the author of an anti-air book about the M ad M ullah show', and the Society for the Preservation of the Fauna of the Empire also com plained that low-flying aircraft stam peded game. D espite these objections, in July 1933 Harris urged that 'the tim e is ripe' for air substitution in East Africa.36 The scales were tipped still further in the air force favour by BrigadierGeneral A. C. Le win, the officer com m anding the Kenya Defence Force.

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An able pilot who had already flown solo to Kenya, he told Arthur Harris in N ovem ber 1933 that he looked forward to 'the day when the RAF take over the whole bundle of tricks'. In M arch 1934 Brigadier N orm an (the Inspector-General of African Colonial Forces) and Air Vice-Marshal N ew all (the AO C M iddle East) issued a joint report on the prospects of saving money by the extended use of air power in East African defence. They concluded that aircraft would be valuable in routine adm inistra­ tion, and against Abyssinian raiders or a m ajor tribal uprising. N orm an and N ew all recommended that two battalions of the King's African Rifles be disbanded and replaced by an air force squadron. Although this would add £10,000 to the estim ates, the civil and imperial value of aircraft was held to justify the extra cost. The Colonial Office were enthusiastic about the scheme,- and a conference of East African gover­ nors, held at Entebbe in January 1935, had few reservations beyond a desire for the British government to cover the extra cost and a w ish to see direct air action reserved for the 'm ost exceptional circum stances'. As expected, the War Office were hostile, but Harris believed that m ost of their argum ents were 'fairly easy to dispose of'.37 The situation in East Africa was, however, transform ed by the Italian invasion and conquest of Abyssinia. Arthur Harris observed, in a phrase more prophetic than perhaps he knew, that 'conditions in all probability w ill never return to the normal as we hitherto understood it'. The schem e for air control w as prem ised upon a more or less stable interna­ tional environment. A s this began to collapse, the internal security of the East African territories and the desire to save money began to seem less im portant than the risk of war with Italy. In October 1937 the Norm an-N ew all proposals were indefinitely shelved. Nevertheless, in 1936 a bomber squadron w as despatched to Nairobi and the following year an Air Vice-Marshal, Sir Robert Brooke-Popham, w as appointed Governor of Kenya. The bombers were employed in a classic air policing role. Patrolling aircraft were used to prevent illegal border crossings; to pursue cattle thieves,- to overawe Chagga dissidents in the Kilim anjaro region,- and to dem onstrate in support of attem pts by the KAR to stop inter-ethnic fighting between Turkana and M erille.38

Conclusion The struggle by the Air M inistry to place more territory under its control w as decided in various ways. The reluctance to employ repressive air power in the British Isles, only tentatively transcended in Ireland, owed m uch to an unw illingness to use aircraft against Europeans, besides a fear of the possible political costs of such use. There w as no doubt a sound geographical argum ent for extending the role of air power in the

THE E X T E N S I O N OF AIR C O N T R O L

defence of British East Africa, but the pattern of air control did not alw ays neatly reflect geographical structures. The vast spaces of the Sudan m ight also have seem ed ideally suited to the system of air control, but a lingering fear of M ahdism or of m utiny am ong the local troops prevented the air force from dom inating the defence of the country. The m ountainous terrain of the Indian Frontier resem bled that policed by the air force in Iraqi Kurdistan from 1922, but the arm y in India, unlike that in M esopotam ia, w as able to block any attem pt to place the border zone under air control. Air policing w as perhaps m ost politically and m ilitarily successful where financial, geographical and strategic logic pointed in the sam e direction - as in the Aden Protectorate after 1928. There is also a clear chronological dim ension to the pattem of air force success and failure. During the 1920s air power won a string of m ilitary and political victories in Som aliland, Iraq and Transjordan: after 1929 the strength of the air control argum ent began to wane. In A ugust that year air power dram atically failed to contain the growing com m unal conflict in Palestine; a few m onths later Trenchard resigned as Chief of the Air Staff and the air force lost its m ost effective political champion. From the m id-1930s the growing uncertainties of international relations m ilitated against schem es of air control based upon skeletal ground forces. The Air M inistry did not alw ays m ake the running in debates about air control: the 1930 schem e for the air control of Som aliland, for example, w as produced at the behest of the Treasury. Strategic policy did not evolve according to purely strategic logic.

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C H A P T E R FOUR

The limits of air substitution

When substitution occurred, aircraft replaced other form s of m ilitary force. But in the 1920s, when the changing technical capabilities of the aeroplane were imperfectly understood, it was not at all clear where the lim its of substitution should be drawn. The practice of air policing or the policy of air control did not in them selves define the operational boundaries of air power. Trenchard repeatedly pressed not only for more territories to pass to air control but also that further m ilitary and naval functions should be taken over by the air force. Air control did not in itself mean the removal of all ground troops; but nor did it rule out the replacement of naval forces or coastal artillery by aircraft. Air policing was merely the m ost prominent form of substitution practised in the 1920s, but by no m eans the only one,- yet all areas in which substitution w as tried were politically related. T his chapter exam ines the process through which the frontiers of substitution were defined. The first section considers the formation of local m ilitary units controlled by the Air M inistry or intended to work with the Royal Air Force; the second section m easures the extent of tactical co-operation between ground troops and aircraft; and the third section discusses Trenchard's plans to substitute air for naval or coastal forces.

The Air Ministry and ground forces The Air Staff never claim ed that aircraft could entirely replace ground forces in the policing of colonial or m andated territory. Troops were required to protect airbases from attack and to guard the political centres of imperial power. The internal security of towns and cities had to depend upon police or soldiers, especially in a more developed country such as Palestine where the greatest risk of disturbance was in the cities. Air control, as Basil Liddell Hart pointed out, m ight more accurately be

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described as 'Air-and-Armour-Control', because arm oured cars were needed to patrol the desert, to follow up the su ccesses of aerial action and to rescue aircrew who had been forced to land in remote regions. In M ay 1924 the Air Staff argued that without an efficient Arab Legion, com ­ m anded by British officers, Transjordan w ould 'lapse into chaos'. The General Staff claim ed that this continued dependence upon ground forces undermined the validity of air control. In Septem ber 1921, for instance, Henry W ilson observed that the whole fabric of the air force schem e for control in M esopotam ia w as 'based on the action of m ilitary forces, that is to say, the Arab Levies and the Arab Army, w ithout which they could not attem pt to m aintain order'. From this prem ise he attacked not merely air policing but the very existence of an independ­ ent air force.1 N or w as the War Office keen to place army un its under the opera­ tional control of air officers in those theatres for whose defence the Air M inistry w as responsible. In March 1921 the Cairo Conference approved a schem e for the air control of M esopotam ia, by which between four and six armoured car com panies would be stationed in the country. In June the Air M inistry enquired whether the War Office would be prepared to supply such units. They were told that m ost armoured cars were urgently needed in Ireland and that fast light tanks were better suited to M esopotam ian conditions; but these vehicles were not yet in produc­ tion and the War Office would not give a definite date when a full com plem ent of either armoured cars or light tanks would be available. In Septem ber the War Office announced plans to withdraw to India two of the three armoured car com panies then in Iraq: the decision provoked an Air M inistry protest. The War Office then prom ised that three armoured car com panies would be in M esopotam ia before the next hot season, but refused to supply them im m ediately. In January 1922, however, Trenchard w as told that the Secretary of State for War had decided not to release any armoured car units for service in M esopota­ m ia once the air control schem e w as in effect.2 If the War Office intended to jeopardize the air control schem e then these evasive tactics proved ineffective. British armoured cars had first been deployed by the Royal N aval Air Service in 1914 to defend advanced landing grounds, so there w as a precedent for Trenchard's suggestion - made at the Cairo Conference in M arch 1921 - that the Royal Air Force should raise its own armoured car com panies. The War Office objected, but were tartly reminded by Trenchard that such a course would not have been contem plated were there not reason to fear War Office obstruction. Trenchard began more detailed work on an RAF armoured car schem e in Septem ber 1921, in case the War Office 'left us in the lurch': when the War Office did exactly that, the Air M inistry

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began to form its own com panies of armoured cars. Worthington-Evans then lamented, perhaps unfairly, 'the spectacle of the War Office withdrawing m ilitary units from Iraq while the Air M inistry is forming m ilitary units to send out there'. Nevertheless, a Conference of M inis­ ters in February 1922 sanctioned the Air M inistry action. As Trenchard pointed out, the air force already had its own drivers, m echanics and vehicle workshops. Moreover, armoured cars and aircraft were both 'highly technical developm ents of m echanical warfare' which possessed som e com m on tactical attributes.3 The army certainly m issed a great opportunity. H istorians have usually explained the arm y's failure to m echanize properly between the world wars in one of two ways: either because its leaders were reaction­ ary, or because the politicians did not instruct it to prepare for a European war but employed it only for imperial policing. John Ferris has pointed out that the army did have the chance to modernize through m echanical substitution in the policing of the Empire. Substitution m eant the replacement of infantry, either by m echanized ground forces or by aircraft. The army and the air force were 'com peting for the sam e strategic niche', and the arm y failed because the RAF won the argum ents about substitution. The policy of air substitution injured the army by inducing the politicians to cut its estim ates and size, and by reducing its opportunities for modernization. Operations in Iraq provided important lessons in armoured warfare not available elsewhere, and the arm y lost the splendid training ground which the air force gained. Yet, ironically, the army could have won the argum ents about substitution; for Chur­ chill originally wanted infantry to be replaced by mechanized army units, but the War Office w as unim pressed by his schem es.4 But there is more to the problem than Ferris allows: the arm y could still have used air control as an opportunity for m echanization, if it had supplied the armoured units which the RAF needed in Iraq. If air policing affected the arm y's ability to m echanize, this was not sim ply because the War Office lost the argum ents about substitution, but also because they then becam e unwilling to co-operate w ith the RAF in the Middle East. The air force armoured cars were usually armed with a single Vickers m achine gun which w as vastly more reliable and accurate than the light Lew is guns used on the ground when the vehicle w as stationary. Besides the stores they needed them selves, the cars carried special equipm ent for work with aircraft - Very lights, m essage bags, a heliograph, ground strips, m edical equipm ent and sm oke bombs. During the 1920s m ost com panies used Rolls Royce armoured cars dating from the G reat War. Although by the end of the decade these had to be driven carefully to preserve the chassis, the basic design w as remarkably strong. In August 1929 one vehicle veered off a hillside in the Aden Protectorate and fell

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about eighty feet but w as 'not badly dam aged' - unlike its occupants, one suspects. The units in Iraq formed an Armoured C ar Wing which in March 1929 com prised six sections, with a total of eighteen Rolls Royce armoured cars, six Rolls Royce w ireless tenders, six M orris six-wheelers and twenty-four Armed Fords. The latter were light vehicles used for scouting and track reconnaissance ahead of the heavy cars over bad going; Armed D esert Tenders acted in support, made flanking m ove­ m ents and carried supplies. Armoured cars were intended to com ple­ m ent the operations of aircraft. U nlike aeroplanes, armoured cars could gather news directly from the local people, could patrol urban areas and could 'stand to' at dawn when aircraft could not use their weapons owing to the poor light.5 Armoured cars nevertheless suffered from severe tactical lim itations. 'The greatest surprise to me since I have been in the country is the ineffectiveness of the armoured cars' wrote John Salm ond to Trenchard from Iraq in N ovem ber 1922: 'I was am azed after all I had heard about them .' Although eased som ew hat by the construction of new m otor roads in the desert and the com pilation of 'going m aps', the m ain problem w as poor cross-country m obility. Rolls Royce armoured cars could not be used in the Aden Protectorate except on the few roads, and conditions in Transjordan were little better. Between Decem ber 1923 and February 1924 the armoured car com pany at Basra w as unable to leave the m ain road owing to heavy rain. M ost vehicles used during the 1920s were four-wheelers, whose low power-to-weight ratio explains their poor performance off roads. Six-whèeled Crossley armoured cars were being tested by 1929, and although these were a great improve­ m ent, their best speed in heavy sand w as still only four m iles per hour. In urbafi areas such as the Old C ity of Jerusalem all vehicles were confined to the m ain streets and public squares. Armoured cars were also surprisingly vulnerable: their radiators were som etim es punctured by rifle fire, a chance bullet m ight penetrate the armoured crew com part­ ment, and the pneum atic tyres - com pletely unprotected - could easily be shot away, or slashed with knives by daring tribesm en who crept up close under cover of darkness.6 The air control schem e as first sketched by Churchill early in 1920 called for the creation of 'local tribal m ilitias' on the m odel of units like the Khyber Rifles, and such forces becam e a characteristic feature of British m ilitary policy in the Middle East. Local levies possessed several advantages over British regular troops in the type of operations envis­ aged by the Air M inistry: they were m uch less costly to raise than regular regiments; they were usually more m obile; and they were fam iliar with local languages, custom s and terrain. Moreover, the form ation of levies could turn the violence of potential dissidents to the advantage of the

AIR POWER AN D C O L O N I A L C O N T R O L

Empire. T h e m aintenance of local forces', observed Lord Londonderry in October 1932, 'enables the Governm ent to enlist the more hotblooded m em bers of the com m unity, who, if they cannot fight for the Government, w ill undoubtedly be found fighting against it.' Charles Tow nshend has correctly noted that m ost im perial gendarmeries raised by the British were essentially m ilitary forces; but his belief that 'such novelties have inevitably been seen by m any as dangerous precedents, sym ptom atic of foreign police states, and as signals of constitutional failure' seem s more doubtful - especially in the Middle Eastern context. Peter Paret has noted that both rebels and governm ents tend to im itate each others' m ilitary m ethods: although the regular and technological Royal Air Force was clearly the diam etric opposite of tribal insurgents, the fact that the m ethods of air control depended upon levies drawn from the tribal population confirm s his supposition.7 The Iraq Levies w as the first and largest body formed to work with the Royal Air Force.8 They were recruited m ainly from Assyrian Christian refugees, whom the British adm inistration regarded as a 'm artial race'. The Assyrian people, about eighty or one hundred thousand strong just before the Great War, originally lived in the highlands along the present border between Turkey and Iraq. In M ay 1915 the Assyrian Patriarch declared war upon the O ttom an Empire, but his forces suffered a series of disastrous defeats after the support of their Russian allies collapsed during the 1917 Revolution. The Assyrian com m unity w as dispersed and about 22,000 trekked South to find shelter w ith the imperial arm ies in M esopotam ia. The British im m ediately began to raise irregular troops from the refugees, and after the end of the Great War these units, given uniform s and British officers, becam e the nucleus of a regular gendarm ­ erie. The Assyrian troops, who particularly appealed to the British as they were unlikely to co-operate w ith the indigenous M uslim popula­ tion, won further imperial favour when they helped to suppress the 1920 Arab rising. By 1922 the Iraq Levies numbered just under 5,000 men,they included one M arsh Arab and three Assyrian infantry battalions, besides cavalry, artillery and m achine gun units. The A ssyrians were allowed to keep their rifles when discharged from the levies as they feared for their safety in a hostile Iraq once they left the security of British service. The M arsh Arab and Kurdish units of the levies were fine but not outstanding troops; but m ost British observers considered the Assyrians to be the best soldiers in Iraq, above all for m ountain warfare. Some resentm ent was felt in King Faisal's Arab Army on this account, and Arab nationalists further disliked the A ssyrians as the living embodi­ m ent of the unwelcome British presence in Iraq. The Kurds detested the A ssyrians as traditional enem ies, as the apparently willing agents of

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central government, and as the authors of an atrocious m assacre at Kirkuk in M ay 1924, when A ssyrian troops killed or wounded about ninety M uslim s. Although they had becom e Iraqi citizens by the N ationalities Layr of 1924, m ost A ssyrians in Iraq were landless refugees w hohoped to return to their original hom eland and who sought in levy service only temporary security. Som e A ssyrians of the T iari and T khum a tribes did drift back to their former hom es in the Hakkiari highlands but were expelled by T urkish troops in 1924; the T urkish government m ade it clear that the A ssyrians were unwelcom e in its territory. The prospect of an eventual return to the original hom eland further receded in 1925 when a League of N ations boundary com m ission placed the permanent frontier between Turkey and Iraq to the south of the H akkiari highlands. The landless A ssyrians therefore cam e to see their best hope of safety to lie in service w ith the levies, which in their turn assum ed an increasingly Assyrian com plexion. By 1927, after various disbandments, the Levies included three battalions of foot and a com pany of m achine guns: all of the rank and file were Assyrian, except the transport. The term s of the British m andate envisaged eventual Iraqi independ­ ence,- but this growing prospect aroused Assyrian alarm at a possible decline in British influence, the disbandm ent of the levies and the ensuing loss of valuable em ploym ent and powerful protection. Plans to settle the Assyrians as a body in the Baradost area of Kurdistan were considered from tim e to tim e but never carried out. By N ovem ber 1931 the levies numbered 1,741 m en of whom 1,081 were m arried A ssyrians whose fam ilies had yet to be settled in Iraq. Furthermore, the dislocation of the Assyrian social hierarchy during the G reat War had to som e extent been remedied by the form ation of the levies, whose structure of authority tended to reflect that of wider Assyrian society. The approach­ ing end of the m andate and the reduction or disbandm ent of the levies therefore threatened the security of landless Assyrian rank and file and the social statu s of junior officers. In June 1932 the A ssyrian levies, fearful for their position in an independent Iraq, announced their intention to disband, secretly planning to m arch north and establish an Assyrian national concentration. The British responded with a show of force and w ith assurances for the future which induced the levies to continue their service. Once Iraq becam e independent in October 1932 the A ssyrians still served the British as aerodrome guards. Their identi­ fication with British interests w as especially significant after 1936, when the Iraqi arm ed forces began to take an active and violent part in politics. The original schem e for air control envisaged the creation in Iraq of an Arab Army - in addition to the Iraq Levies - which w ould allow the

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gradual reduction of the Anglo-Indian garrison and would partly fulfil the nationalist longing for the outward signs of independence. The T urks had locally conscripted 15,000 men, which Jaafar Pasha al-Askari, a prom inent Arab politician, considered the sm allest force able to m aintain the cohesion of an independent Iraq. The Cairo Conference of March 1921 approved the creation of an Arab Army which had reached a strength of about 4,500 when air control w as instituted in October the following year. Trenchard doubted whether the Iraq Arm y would ever becom e efficient and in 1923 his view s were apparently confirmed by the pessim istic inspection reports of Colonel Meinertzhagen, who reflected the widespread British belief that the M esopotam ian Arabs were not 'natural soldiers', unlike the tribesm en from whom the levies were recruited. A s the prospect of Iraqi independence neared and that of peacefully merging the Iraq Levies with the arm y receded, the need for \more efficient troops increased. M ost im perial observers equated effi­ ciency with the general introduction of European officers in executive command; although the Arab nationalists refused to com ply w ith that request, an agreement of April 1925 seconded British officers to a few 'exem plar' units and appointed a British Inspector-General to oversee the entire force. Som e im provem ent w as noted, but the system of dual com m and did not work well in practice and the performance of the army, now 12,000 strong, during the 1932 Barzan operations still lacked lustre.9 The gendarmerie formed in Palestine differed from m ost other ground forces under air control, for it contained a large elem ent of European rank and file. The early com m unal riots soon showed that the Palestine Police, recruited from M uslim s, C hristians and Jews, would not remain aloof from the sectarian conflict; to protect Z ionist settlem ents Chur­ chill believed that a m ixed gendarmerie would be more politically acceptable than Jewish battalions and cheaper than British regular troops. He proposed that the Palestinian section of the new gendarmerie be raised locally am ong all denom inations, and the European section be recruited from the notorious 'Black and T ans' - former British soldiers now serving with the Royal Irish Constabulary. The General Staff claim ed that a white gendarmerie would be more costly than a regular battalion and they strongly deprecated 'the substitution of such a hybrid force for British Regulars'. Churchill's plan nevertheless m ade good progress, and both the British and the Palestinian sections of gendarm­ erie were created in 1922. The former com m ander of the Royal Irish Constabulary, General Tudor, took over the British section, which inherited not only the leader, but the nicknam e and reputation, of its parent unit. The gendarmerie w as inspected in M arch 1923 by Colonel Meinertzhagen, who praised the physique, discipline and initiative of

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the British section, and the esprit de corps and lack of com m unal feeling of the Palestinian part. When the last of the Indian regulars were withdrawn in 1923, Herbert Sam uel (the High Com m issioner) warned th at 'public security would be seriously endangered' unless the British Gendarm erie were increased by three com panies; but it w as decided instead to station a regiment of British cavalry in the country.10 A pressing need to reduce the British grant-in-aid to Palestine prompted a review of these arrangem ents in 1925. A conference at Jerusalem in April advised that the British Gendarm erie be reduced to 200 m en and be absorbed by the police, and that the rem aining cavalry regiment be withdrawn. Sir Herbert Sam uel feared that the removal of all distinctly European units from Palestine courted 'considerable risks', and the Air Officer Com m anding shared his anxieties. A decision on the Jerusalem proposals w as postponed until Lord Plumer, about to replace Sam uel as High Com m issioner, had arrived in Palestine and exam ined the ques­ tion locally. Plum er believed that the danger of com m unal conflict had lessened and could now be contained by a larger police force. He accordingly advised that both sections of the gendarmerie be disbanded, and recommended that a new frontier force be levied for service in Transjordan. Trenchard approved this projected separation of police and m ilitary tasks; but both Peake Pasha, who com m anded the Arab Legion in Transjordan, and som e leading Z ionists voiced concern at the reduc­ tions. Plum er's plan w as nevertheless approved by the relevant m in is­ tries in January 1926; and once the British cavalry regiment had left later in the year, the security of Palestine w as m aintained by Police, armoured cars and aeroplanes.11 In August 1929 Arab crowds attacked Jewish com m m unities in m ost Palestinian cities. These riots clearly showed that the reductions had been taken too far. The sole param ilitary support im m ediately available w as the British section of the police, but this w as only 140 strong and far too w eak to protect all Jewish settlem ents; only a few airm en could be withdrawn from their technical tasks; the Transjordan Frontier Force w as untrained in detached duties; and the m achine guns of armoured cars or aircraft were too indiscrim inate to use in towns. Three battalions of British infantry were hurried from Egypt, and 170 special constables raised from the Jewish population. Trenchard at once denied all respon­ sibility for the breakdown of policing and claim ed, quite wrongly, that he had 'alw ays insisted' upon the presence of a ground garrison 'until Lord Plum er disbanded it'. In the afterm ath of the riots the possibility of reviving som e form of param ilitary force w as considered. The pros­ pect of raising a gendarmerie from Assyrian C hristians who had passed through the ranks of the Iraq Levies was briefly discussed, but Sir John Chancellor (the High Com m issioner) believed that the em ploym ent of

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non-British outsiders would forfeit the sym pathy of the Palestinians. In 1932 the Air M inistry suggested that a locally raised gendarmerie m ight replace one battalion of the garrison, but the risk of com m unal distur­ bance w as now clearly apparent, so the Cabinet preferred a body of British infantry.12 In Transjordan, a different kind of force evolved. After the Great War the Bedouin raiders in the Tranjordanian desert were am ply supplied with m odem rifles, and were rarely intercepted by a poorly equipped force of about one hundred Arab soldiers and police. The various internal security units raised in Transjordan in the early 1920s were merged in July 1923 to create a new gendarmerie, around 1,000 strong, known in Arabic as the Arab Arm y and fam ed in English as the Arab Legion. The Legion w as funded by the Transjordanian government (which received a subsidy from Britain) and its discipline depended m ainly upon prompt payment, although the m en were devoted to Peake Pasha, their com ­ mander. When Lord Plum er reorganized the public security forces of the Palestine Mandate, he strictly distinguished m ilitary from police func­ tions, and in April 1926 a new m ilitary unit was formed in Transjordan. Paid from im perial funds, and later named the Transjordan Frontier Force, this 800-strong corps included a far higher proportion of British officers than the Arab Legion, although all but a minority of Jews were excluded from its otherwise diverse ranks. When the Frontier Force assum ed the m ilitary role in Transjordan, the Arab Legion, to the dism ay of Peake, w as stripped of its artillery and treated for a tim e as civil police. Glubb Pasha, who had previously served in the South Western D eserts of Iraq, w as brought to Am m an in Novem ber 1930 to consider the problem of nom adic raids in Transjordan. He concluded that the Bed­ ouin should police them selves, and recuited from the tribesm en a D esert Patrol of the Arab Legion, which m arkedly reduced the number of raids by the end of 1932.13 The A m ir Abdullah at first showed a 'som ew hat hostile attitude' to the Transjordan Frontier Force which trespassed on the territory of his favoured Arab Legion; but the efficiency of the new unit won his adm iration in the end. The Frontier Force served in Palestine during the com m unal riots of 1929, and though this task severely tested the loyalty of the Arab ranks, few deserted or resigned. From 1930 two squadrons were stationed in the Jordan Valley where they were on hand to reinforce the Palestine Police. The Frontier Force com prised three squadrons or com panies of cavalry and one m ounted on cam els. These were at first unable to control the nomads, for the horsemen could not venture far into the desert and the single squadron of cam elry w as insufficient. In October 1929 Colonel Shute (the Officer Com m anding the Frontier Force) proposed that the cam el squadron be replaced by infantry mounted

THE L I M I T S OF AIR S U B S T I T U T I O N

in fully tracked Carden-Lloyd armoured carriers. The General Staff deplored this proposal, for it had been an axiom of British policy ever since the Indian M utiny to withhold the latest w eapons from native units in case they were turned against the im perial power. But Ihn Saud, the m ost dangerous potential enem y of H ashem ite Transjordan, had already obtained armoured cars and aeroplanes; and the m ilitary argu­ m ents for partial m echanization overcame these political fears. The Frontier Force bore the brunt of the fighting against the Arab rebels in Palestine in 1936 before the British reinforcem'ents arrived. The unit was disbanded in 1948; m any of its m en then transferred to the Arab Legion, which became the Army of independent Transjordan.14 Local troops were also raised in the Aden Protectorate to work with the air force when air control w as established in 1928. Trenchard em phasized that these levies were never intended to become as efficient or well-equipped as the Arab Army in Iraq but were to ressem ble 'other scalliw ag corps which have been raised temporarily'. The original task s of the Aden Protectorate Levies, as they later became, were to defend the frontier, to protect advanced landing grounds, and to foster cohesion am ong the hinterland tribes so they could more firm ly resist the Iman of Yemen. During the Great War a body of foot, known as the Yemen Infantry, had been raised in the Aden Protectorate. Its form er com ­ mander, Colonel M. C. Lake, took charge of the new Aden levies, which included m any of his former subordinates. The levies were recruited m ainly am ong the tribes, particularly the Aw laqi and Awdhali, rather than from the settled citizens of the port of Aden, as the tribesm en showed that lack of political awareness which the British looked for in a 'm artial race'. They were originally led by two British officers who were expected to show sound political sense; to study tribal custom s; and to possess or to obtain a working knowledge of colloquial Arabic. The levies opened up contacts between the adm inistration and elem ents of tribal society which had not previously felt the presence of govern­ ment; but their operations were intended to remain subordinate to those of the Royal Air Force. The unit proved effective. In early October 1933, for example, two platoons com pleted a m arch of sixty-seven m iles, m uch of it over shifting sand dunes, in seventy-nine hours. When the troops were later inspected by Group Captain Boyd (the Officer C om ­ manding British Forces at Aden) he w as 'im pressed by their fit appear­ ance, by their alertness and by their general soldierly bearing'.15 The air force and levies at Aden were backed by various other bodies. In M ay 1928 Sam uel Hoare (the Air M inister) observed that 'an efficient Police Force was an essential auxiliary to air control'; but the Aden Police were then poorly armed, disorganized and badly trained. The police had originally been recruited in India and trained in the Indian

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fashion, but a new policy of local recruitm ent w as begun, despite the opposition of the Bombay government. The armed police were expanded once the garrison had been removed, the new recruits being drawn predominantly from the Protectorate rather than the town. In the hinterland itself the British tried to strengthen the hand of the tribal chiefs so the results of bombing could be more successfully exploited on the ground. M odem arm s including m achine guns were supplied to the army of the Sultan of Lahej; in 1934 and 1935 Hawshabi, Awdhali, Fadli and D ali Tribal Guards were created with British funds and supervision around a core of former levy NCOS; and in 1937 a force of Governm ent Guards w as set up to support the Political O fficers.16

Tactical co-operation Relations between the War Office and the Air M inistry during the 1920s were soured by long and apparently petty disputes over the dem arcation of departm ental responsibility. Thé bitter and protracted nature of these debates is unsurprising when it is remembered that during the early part of the decade the War Office several tim es sought to abolish the independent air force; and Trenchard, in turn, tried to extend the scope of air force operations at the expense of the army. D rastic postw ar cuts in defence spending from which all the services suffered no doubt heightened the tension. Several historians have argued that this depart­ m ental hostility percolated down the ranks of com m and to inhibit tactical work together in the field. 'Cooperation between the two services' in Africa, w rites D avid Killingray, 'w as often slender or coincidental'; Anthony Clayton suggests that even by the later 1930s, 'despite som e not irrelevant experience in India, neither the Army nor the RAF had worked out any concept of air to ground support - neither side had even begun to understand the other's capabilities'. Henry Wilson certainly baulked at placing arm y units under the com m and of 'Air so-called officers', som e of whom he regarded as mere 'chauffeurs', unable to conduct a campaign. Nevertheless, relations at unit level were often good; and a close study of policing operations reveals that tactical co-operation between air and ground forces in the Empire w as highly developed.17 The extent of tactical co-operation between the arm y and the RAF in Europe has been thoroughly researched and carefully described by Derek Waldie. Air and ground attacks had been effectively combined in action against the Germ an Army in 1918 and in training during the Chanak crisis of 1922. For m ost of the 1920s, however, the rival services developed com peting rather than com plem entary strategies which did not m ake co-operation any easier: the army em phasized a continental

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com m itm ent and 'sm all wars', while the air force stressed hom e defence and the independent bomber offensive. The arm y continually requested that m ore air force units be devoted to co-operation and in 1923 optim istically demanded thirty squadrons in peacetim e and fifty-seven in war; but Trenchard w as reluctant to divert his forces from the independent offensive and alloted only four squadrons to co-operation duties by 1924. Because the Air Staff professed a sincere but perhaps unjustified faith in the heavy bomber, few specialized ground attack aircraft were developed, and even these lacked essential armour. Rela­ tions were little closer by the 1930s. Co-operation squadrons were not paid for by the Army but were tem porarily borrowed from the air force, an expedient which could never entirely satisfy either service. Army m anoeuvres in 1935 exposed a grave shortage of effective air cover which had not been technically or tactically remedied by the outbreak of war w ith Germany. But, however the failings of cooperation in Europe be ex­ plained, W aldie's assertion that the opportunities for tactical co-ordina­ tion in the 1920s were 'few and far between' is not borne out by the evidence of Em pire.18 Effective co-operation between air and ground forces depends upon efficient com m unication; and the practice of air policing, combined w ith the experience gained during the Great War, produced various reliable m ethods of transm itting information. Aircraft could pass orders to ground troops sim ply by dropping weighted m essage bags to which coloured stream ers were attached to attract attention,- but collecting m essages from the ground in terrain too rugged for aircraft to land proved more difficult. An ingenious system w as devised whereby m essages were attached to a weighted wire stretched rather like a washing line between two twelve-foot poles: aircraft would catch the wire in hooks which they trailed beneath them and carry the m essage to its destina­ tion. The system called for skilful flying, particularly in m ountainous areas, but it proved m ost reliable during the operations of 1923 in Kurdistan. Ground troops routinely carried coloured strips, visible from the air, which they laid on the ground in coded patterns to indicate the nam e and position of their unit and the action they w ished the air force to perform. Radio w as also used more and more. During a reconnais­ sance in the Sudan in Novem ber and Decem ber 1931, four short-wave w ireless sets - set up at an advanced air base or carried in aircraft and vehicles - provided 'excellent com m unication between ground, air and headquarters'. It w as also standard practice for liaison officers to accom ­ pany the units of another service to ensure good com m unications between ground and air.19 The use of aircraft to provision ground forces w as typical of air policing; it is perhaps best exem plified by the air supply of Koicol in

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Kurdistan in 1923. The variety of stores airlifted to the colum n as it inched its way through the m ountains w as indeed im pressive, for it included soap, tins of dubbin, buckles and straps, rifle oil, pullthroughs, nose bags, m ail, m edical stores, biscuits, sugar, dhal, rice, ghee, tea, barley, w ireless accum ulators, groundsheets, oil drums, helm ets, head ropes, saddlers' equipment, putees, shirts and shorts. The supply of 1,000 pairs of boots and 3,000 pairs of socks w as particularly w elcom ed by the footsore infantry who, after hard m arching in inclem ent weather, m ight otherwise have gone barefoot. M ost of the stores were carried by four Vickers Vernon heavy transports, based at Kirkuk, although lighter aircraft were also pressed into service. D espite the undoubted air force achievem ent, this m ethod ran into problems. N ot enough parachutes were available and som e supplies, packed into cases padded w ith straw, were badly damaged when they hit the ground: others were dropped inaccurately and were widely scattered or lost over hillsides. The supply of Koicol w as one of the earliest and m ost striking exam ples of provi­ sioning by air, but not the only one. The technique sustained the efficiency of isolated posts; extended the effective radius of infantry operations,- and eased the gnawing anxiety felt by colum n com m anders for their vulnerable com m unications.20 Transport aircraft carried not just m ilitary supplies but the troops them selves. Kurdish opposition to Arab and imperial rule in Iraq was focussed in the m ountainous north-east of the country but com m unica­ tions with this remote region were difficult even in fine weather. The General Staff argued that only permanent m ilitary occupation could subdue the hill districts, but the development of air transport made this expensive policy m uch less urgent. Imperial troops were first conveyed by air in Iraq in February 1923 when two com panies of Sikh infantry in full equipm ent were flown by ten Vernon transports to Kirkuk in preparation for a cam paign in Kurdistan. The speed of aerial m ovem ent enabled troops to be rushed to the scene of a riot w ithin days or even hours of its outbreak. After Assyrian Levies had m assacred M uslim citizens in Kirkuk in M ay 1924 a party of Fusiliers w as im m ediately flown 150 m iles from Baghdad to arrive at the town by nightfall. T o cover the sam e distance by rail and road would have taken five days. Bodies of troops were hurried for sim ilar reasons to Palestine in A ugust 1929 and to Cyprus in October 1931. With growing experience larger form ations were moved, as in June 1932 when an entire battalion was flown from Egypt to Iraq to contain the strike of the Assyrian Levies. The technique could be applied in reverse to remove endangered civilians and officials; as, for example, from Sulaym aniyah in 1922 and Kabul in 1928.21 The m ovem ent of casualties across the difficult terrain encountered in frontier warfare w as alw ays laborious, and som etim es dangerous or

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fatal to sick or wounded soldiers. The use of aircraft to evacuate casualties could elim inate m ost of the im portant delays and m ove the injured in relative com fort'to base hospitals. Single-engined service aircraft were originally used to evacuate the casualties, who were strapped onto the top of the fuselage in a specially adapted N eilson stretcher. A s early as A ugust 1922 a soldier suffering from acute appendicitis w as flown 300 m iles from Solium to hospital in Alexandria by this method. A t the sam e tim e four Vernon heavy transports were converted to am bulance m achines, able to carry stretcher or sitting cases, but their unreliable engines m ade these aircraft ineffective. Of the three m achines allotted to Iraq, two crashed en route, one irreparably, and only one w as serviceable at Baghdad by M arch 1923. When repres­ sive operations in Kurdistan began in the Spring, ordinary bombertransport Vernons were employed as m akeshift am bulances; and these carried to Baghdad nearly 200 dysentry and diarrhoea cases, who would otherwise have had to endure a gruelling six-day journey through the m ountains on donkeys, w ith possibly fatal results. From 1924 no aircraft were specially produced as ambulances,* but the new heavy transports were designed to be locally convertible to this im portant purpose.22 Co-operation between aircraft and armoured cars, them selves manned and m aintained by the air force, w as understandably close. Som e armoured car personnel had experience of flying and could appreciate the strengths and lim itations of aircraft. A trained pilot, com m anding a detachm ent of vehicles, could select suitable sites for landing or for picking up m essages, knew the operational radius of aircraft, and could accurately estim ate probable visibility from the air. T actical co-ordina­ tion w as m ade more effective by com bined training in which armoured car crews practised propeller swinging, com m unications, and refuelling and handling aeroplanes on the ground. On active service aircraft searched ahead of armoured cars for obstacles to m ovem ent and routes to avoid them, reported tribal m ovem ents, led the vehicles to their targets, and provided covering attacks once fighting began. Armoured cars protected aircraft which had been forced to land and m aintained the pursuit of scattered raiders while aeroplanes returned to refuel. Ar­ m oured cars proved of particular value in salvage work. When an aircraft becam e stranded in the desert it w as often im possible, owing to difficult terrain, for a second m achine to land safely alongside and offer assis­ tance,* but vehicles could carry water, spares and supplies to the crew or tow the stricken aircraft back to base on a trailer.23 Aircraft also protected convoys travelling routes liable to am bush. In April 1937, for example, a colum n of fifty lorries and three private vehicles occupied by British officers set out for Wana in W aziristan on the Indian Frontier. D espite an escort of infantry and four armoured cars,

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the convoy w as am bushed in the Shahur Tangi, a deep defile a few m iles w est of Jandola, by a m ixed force of M ahsuds and Bhittannis com m anded by the 'notorious bandit' Khonia Khel. Confined in a long and narrow gorge com m anded on both sides by steep hills, the colum n suffered the severe losses of thirty-one killed and forty-two wounded before the attackers withdrew at nightfall w ith their spoils. A single aircraft had m aintained a close reconnaissance of the route and, once the attack began, infantry and armoured reinforcements were hurriedly sent up. Aircraft of an army co-operation squadron also flew to the assistance of the beleaguered convoy. Although the Royal Air Force failed to prevent this am bush, full precautionary use was later made of its m achines. The need for vulnerable convoys w as reduced by a Bomber Transport flight, which carried m en and supplies to and from Wana, while more frequent patrolling by aircraft of strategic roads helped guard against future surprise attacks. Aeroplanes also protected m any convoys in the Aden Protectorate when the government adopted its policy of 'peace on the roads' during the 1930s.24 The m ost im portant function of aircraft on the colonial battlefield w as the close support of ground units. The presence of aeroplanes conferred a great advantage upon im perial troops in frontier warfare, for the soldiers on the ground could reduce their casualties by delaying their attacks until bombers - used as m obile artillery - had weakened the m aterial and perhaps the psychological defences of the tribesmen. During one operation carried out in Kurdistan in April 1923, for ex­ ample, the troops of Koicol cam e under rifle and m achine gun fire from ahead and on their right flank; three aircraft arrived and attacked, and the diversion which these afforded allowed the imperial troops to advance and occupy heights which outflanked the hostile m achine gunners. Although the num erous bom bs dropped during this Kurdistan cam paign did little m aterial damage, T urkish and tribal soldiers were interm ittently forced to take cover and cease firing on im perial col­ um ns. Aircraft co-operated not only with imperial troops but with tribal auxiliaries, such as the Audali forces whose attacks on Zeidi postions in the Aden Protectorate in October 1925 were covered by bombing. In Transjordan the m ethod of 'holding' cam el raiders with aircraft m achine gun fire was developed: by firing across the path of retreating Bedouin, aircraft could prevent the escape of raiders, w ithout causing loss of life, while the Frontier Force closed in pursuit.25 C lose air support assum ed its m ost developed form in Palestine during the 1936 Arab Revolt. By early June the 'outstanding m ilitary problem' for the British w as the armed bands which used the methods of guerrilla war to attack convoys and isolated detachments. It w as soon discovered that air patrols kept convoys and trains free from attack, but

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this did nothing to bring the insurgents to battle in conditions likely to cause their defeat. Holding no ground and possessing no lines of com m unication or headquarters, the elusive bands could choose when to attack, would select only those targets which they could easily overwhelm and would disperse to safety when threatened by superior force. Standing patrols by aircraft were therefore ended. M ost bombers were instead concentrated as striking forces and held at im m ediate readiness at Ram leh and M ejamie. From the middle of June, w ireless vehicles accom panied all convoys and patrols. If the guerrillas were tem pted to attack these apparently vulnerable targets, a sim ple em er­ gency call (XX with a coded location), given priority over all other radio traffic, w as used to sum m on aerial reinforcements. Bombers were usually airborne within five m inutes of the call, could be overhead w ithin half an hour and would then either 'fix' the discovered band until infantry could be brought to bear, or would them selves attack the insurgents. Fourteen XX calls were answered in June, thirteen in July and forty-seven during the entire rebellion. T his exploitation of rapid com m unication achieved striking success, and the guerrillas suffered heavy losses in proportion to their total num bers.26 Derek Waldie argues that effective m ethods of tactical co-ordination between the arm y and the air force were not developed partly because local levies replaced regular troops in the regions under Air M inistry control. T h is assertion takes no account of the close co-operation between the air force and regular units of the British and Indian Arm ies during John Salm ond's cam paign in Kurdistan in 1923; and it ignores the new m ethods developed in Palestine during the Arab Revolt. Besides, if the army and air force failed to assim ilate the lessons of policing operations by aircraft, armoured cars and levies, the fault lies less with the tactical m ethods them selves, or the replacem ent of regular troops, than with a failure to com m unicate at staff or m inisterial level. Air policing usually dem onstrated successful tactical co-ordination, but som e significant failures still occured. Arm y officers could not be trained in aerial observation if the officers in question were not keen to fly. 'N ever have I felt so utterly m iserable', wrote Lieutenant Aubrey Lees to his m other in February 1924 after his first bum py flight in an aeroplane in Iraq: 'I did feel an utter worm .' More seriously, the 3rd Iraq Levy battalion arrived tired and shaken at Alana one m orning in April 1923, after their transport had been bombed by the air force. Such accidents were rare and m ost failures of co-operation took a less spectacular form. Armoured cars and aeroplanes som etim es spent futile hours, or even days, searching the desert for each other after com m uni­ cations failed and orders were m isinterpreted or lost.27

AIR POWER AN D C O L O N I A L C O N T R O L

Substitution and the navy Trenchard fought his political cam paign for air substitution m ainly at the expense of the army. In Palestine, Iraq and Aden the advent of air control caused the the British regular garrison to be first reduced and (hen removed. The War Office w as the m ost persistent and dangerous opponent of an independent air force and air policing overland w as therefore essential to the survival of the RAF. But Trenchard also did battle with the Admiralty. The m ost serious altercation w as that over naval aviation, which had passed to the air force in 1918 - the Admiralty fought hard to regain it before recovering control of carrier-borne, but not coastal, aircraft in 1937. T his struggle has, however, been ably and extensively discussed by other scholars; and moreover the defensive strategy of the Air M inistry differs m arkedly from the policy of active substitution pursued elsewhere.28 But substitution, and even air polic­ ing, did impinge upon the Admiralty, as this section shows. Trenchard attem pted to substitute air for naval or coastal forces in two distinct areas: the defence of imperial ports, m ost notably Singapore; and the policing of the slave trade in the Red Sea. T his section outlines the progress of these debates and explains why the Air M inistry failed to achieve its political objectives. A s early as M ay 1921 Trenchard and Churchill suggested that the air force could defend the coastline of Britain and the Empire. N o action w as taken on this proposal until Decem ber 1923 when the C om m ittee of Imperial Defence recommended that the fortress com m ander of a defended port should be a m ilitary officer, but accepted that technical development m ight m ake this policy obsolete. Within a year Trenchard had prepared a schem e for the defence of the new naval base at Singapore by aircraft rather than the 15-inch guns originally envisaged. Sam uel Hoare (the Air Minister) cautiously encouraged these plans, but advised Trenchard not to reveal them im m ediately to Winston Churchill (the Chancellor of the Exchequer): 'I do not at all want him to m ake use of us as his storm-troops in a financial battle with the Admiralty. ' Trenchard presented his schem e to the other Chiefs of Staff in March 1925. He observed, quite correctly, that aircraft based at Singapore could bombard an approaching Japanese fleet at m uch greater range than could coastal artillery, and claimed, with rather less justice, that bombing w as now more accurate than heavy shellfire. He justified his scheme, however, not on m ilitary but on financial grounds: since aircraft were mobile they need not be based permanently at Singapore and could be m oved to the port from India during a period of 'strained relations' with Japan; the

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necessary squadrons therefore already existed and would not need to be paid for a second tim e. If the heavy guns were not installed and a defensive strategy based on air power were adopted, there would be a financial saving estim ated by Trenchard at more than £3 m illion. The argument w as ingenious but shown later to be fundam entally flawed.*9 A s Trenchard had foreseen, neither the Adm iralty nor the War Office warmed to these ideas. The N aval -Staff em phasized the strategic significance of Singapore, w ithout which no British fleet could assum e the offensive in the Far East: it w as unw ise to take risks in its defence. They also questioned the technical assum ptions which underpinned Trenchard's belief in the deterrent power of aircraft, and in particular his claim that level or torpedo bombing w as more accurate and effective than gunfire. Admiral Beatty (the First Sea Lord) cut to the heart of the m atter when he exposed the fantastic accounting upon which Trenchard's financial argum ents were based. It w as unrealistic, observed Beatty, to calculate the cost of a schem e of air defence w ithout including expendi­ ture on aircraft: if the squadrons were to be permanently based at Singapore then this should be reflected in the estimates,- but if they were to be based elsewhere then they could hardly be an effective deterrent. If the cost of the air force squadrons were included in the Trenchard scheme, then even by the m ost favourable estim ate, little more than £1 m illion would be saved, spread over several years. Beatty w as also reluctant to put off the installation of the heavy guns to aw ait technical developments, for 'he considered that the m enace from Japan was m ost serious and that to believe that there w as no possiblity of war during the next ten years w as in reality living in a fool's paradise'. Further debate w as postponed until the sum m er of 1926, while the Air Staff worked out their plans in more detail. When discussion w as resum ed Trenchard pro­ posed a com prom ise. He suggested that the first batch of three 15-inch guns be installed, but a decision on the balance be delayed pending fur­ ther investigation. T h is was approved by the Cabinet in A ugust 1926.30 By Decem ber 1927 the C om m ittee of Imperial Defence had agreed a statem ent of principle on coast defence; but this com prom ise declara­ tion w as imprecise, above all where aircraft were concerned. Work on the Singapore defences proceeded slowly, the installation of the first three 15-inch guns being prolonged into the 1932-33 financial year; and in M arch 1928 a decision on the second stage w as postponed until the strategic, tactical and technical picture had clarified. In June and July 1928 a series of gunnery trials were held at Portsm outh and M alta, in which 9.2-inch guns, firing at the target ship C en tu rio n , failed to obtain a single hit with seventy-two rounds. Both the War Office and the Adm iralty were disappointed with the results, and suggested that further tests were needed before any irrevocable decision was taken

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about the Singapore defences. Trenchard, however, w as jubilant and 'said he had been w aiting five years for the present situation to arise'. The Cabinet agreed that there should be no spending on 9.2-inch or 15inch guns at Singapore for the financial year 1929-30, while the Chiefs of Staff considered the wider role of heavy guns in coastal defence. Trenchard now claim ed that 'all the argum ents he had used four or five years ago in connection with the em ploym ent of aircraft in coast defence had been clearly borne out by the trials'. In January 1929 the other Chiefs of Staff reluctantly agreéd to reconsider the rival m erits of aircraft and artillery in coastal defence.31 After the surprising results of the Portsm outh and M alta gun trials Trenchard shifted his argum ent to defend the basing of bombers at Singapore m ainly on technical rather than financial grounds. The tests showed, he claimed, that obsolescent single guns could not hit their targets; but it would be too costly either to modernize all coastal artillery or to install m ultiple batteries. H is belief that bombing w as m ore accurate than gunfire had now been apparently confirmed by trials. In July 1929 the Chiefs of Staff acknowledged that, 'in consequence of the coast defence firings last sum m er, the whole system of coast defence gunnery is under consideration'. While m aintaining his belief that the m ost effective form of coastal defence w as a com bination of aircraft and artillery, General M ilne (the CIGS) would not recommend further outlay on heavy and m edium guns at Singapore until the whole system of coastal defence had been thoroughly studied. Trenchard proposed that, as an interim m easure, a squadron of torpedo-bombers from the central reserve be assigned to the defence of Singapore while these studies were undertaken. The Chiefs of Staff accepted this provisional arrangement, which represented the high waterm ark of Air M inistry fortunes in the debate. Trenchard's faith in the accuracy of aerial attack was apparently confirmed by bombing trials against HM S C en tu rio n in September 1929. A ttacking from a m ean height of 5,000 feet, aircraft dropped 308 bombs, of which no less than 56 hit the target. Neverthe­ less, gunnery trials of a triple 9.2-inch battery the following month showed m uch more im pressive results (10 hits out of 193 rounds) than had been obtained the previous year. The variations merely highlighted the technical uncertainty, w ithout suggesting any obvious solutions.32 By N ovem ber 1929 Trenchard w as hopeful. In his paper T h e F u lle r E m p lo y m e n t o f A ir P ow er in Im p e ria l D efen ce he observed that the present coastal artillery was entirely obsolete, and argued that air power would provide greater security at less cost than the modernization of fixed defences, which he damned as 'a costly, unproductive and ineffec­ tive form of insurance against very improbable contingencies'. Debate was less urgent while the first three 15-inch guns were being installed

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at Singapore; but in Decem ber 1931 a subcom m ittee under Stanley Baldwin w as appointed to exam ine all aspects of coastal defence, paying close attention to the im pact of air power. The report of the Baldwin C om m ittee was a m ajor defeat for the Air Staff. In a cogent and balanced paper the C om m ittee acknowledged the importance of aircraft, but recommended that 'coast defences should be organized on a basis of co­ operation between the three Defence Services, the gun retaining its position as the m ain deterrent against naval attack'. These conclusions disappointed the Air M inistry, but it w as felt unw ise to take risks in the defence of Singapore while the Far East remained tense in the w ake of the Japanese occupation of M anchuria. A further squadron of torpedo bombers w as sent to Singapore in the autum n of 1933, but these were to augm ent, not to replace, the fixed defences. Jam es Neidpath has tried to dispel the m yth that the heavy guns at Singapore were 'pointing the wrong way' when the Japanese attacked in Decem ber 1941. But the British were understandably preoccupied with the war in Europe and the N ear East, reluctant to take Japanese m ilitary power seriously and un­ willing to provide lavishly for the defence of the fortress - it is unlikely that any strategy based on air power could have overcome these ob­ stacles and saved Singapore from the greatest capitulation in British m ilitary history.33 The air defence of Singapore w as clearly not a question of im perial policing but of external security. Nevertheless, the substitution of air­ craft for ground forces in the M iddle East and the attem pted substitution of torpedo bombers for coastal artillery at Singapore are bureaucratically linked. Both are particular m anifestations of the wider political strategy pursued by Trenchard: first to defend the existence of the independent air force; later to extend its functions at the expense of the older services. Trenchard him self certainly m ade the connection explicit. When he presented his revised schem e for the air defence of Singapore in M ay 1926 he claim ed that he w ished aircraft to be used 'in substitution for som e of the existing m ethods of defence, as has already taken place in Iraq'. In the sam e way his N ovem ber 1929 paper on air power called for a thorough investigation of possible air substitution, not just in coastal defence, but in the air policing of Africa and India. R. J. Gavin has argued that the political links between substitution at Singapore and policing at Aden were especially close. G avin claim s that the Aden Protectorate passed to air control because the Air M inistry had 'bought off' the Adm iralty 'by withdrawing their objections the the N avy's schem e for the defence of Singapore'. There w as certainly a good deal more to the debate than this sim ple explanation allows, but the suggestion that the Air M inistry and the Adm iralty m ay have done a private deal does not contradict the known sequence of events. W ithout more solid evidence,

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however, this interesting hypothesis m ust remain unconfirmed.34 The Air Staff also hoped that aircraft could police the slave trade in the Red Sea.35 The slave traffic w as moribund as an organized business, and that which remained w as an informal speculative venture by a few traders. M ost slaves were bought or captured by the D anakil tribe in the African interior, were shipped across the Red Sea from the port of Tadjura in French Som aliland, then marched up the coast of Arabia for sale. D em and for adult slaves was low, as there was no shortage of adult labour in Arabia, so m ost slaves were children, or girls approaching adolesence. Children were easier to collect in raids, cheaper to transport and less difficult to hide. Potential profits were high. Slaves cost only two or three pounds in Abyssinia, if indeed they were paid for at all, while prices in Arabia ranged between about nineteen pounds for a boy and fifty-six pounds for an attractive virgin: 'the latter', observed one British naval officer, 'being naturally in great demand'. Other slaves were the children of African M uslim s who were sold by their parents in the Hijaz to pay for their pilgrimage to the holy places of Islam . The slave dhows worked m ainly between October and M arch when the prevailing winds carried them quickly across the Red Sea to Arabia. The clandes­ tine nature of the trade m akes it hard to ascertain the numbers involved: but the captain of a Royal N avy sloop estim ated that about ten or twelve dhows, each carrying between fifteen and twenty children, made the crossing every year. The current anti-slavery patrol relied upon two sloops assigned to the Red Sea from the M editerranean fleet, but these vessels proved ineffec­ tive. The ships each had to m ake two v isits a year to M alta for routine m aintenance and repair, so it w as im possible to have even one ship permanently patrolling for slave dhows in the Red Sea unless the im portant work of visiting outlying British com m unities in the region were neglected. There w as only the m ost remote chance that a single sloop, m aking at best eleven knots under full steam , could catch an elusive slave dhow in an expanse of water which was the sam e length as the distance from England to Gibraltar. N o steam ship could safely approach the Red Sea coast even in daylight, except in certain wellcharted areas, and even these were hazardous after dark. A dhow could cross the narrows at the southern end of the Red Sea in about three hours. Travelling at night w ithout lights, the slave vessels were hard to see and, if the slavers spotted a warship, they could haul down their sails and become less conspicuous still. The sloops by way of contrast were easily seen and their first appearance in the Red Sea in daylight w as usually 'quite sufficient for their presence to be broadcasted along both Arabian and African coasts'. M ost dhows, especially those fishing for pearls or sharks, carried a large crew which included apprentice boys, and the

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presence of slaves could not be detected except by a thorough search after boarding. Dhow s which legitim ately flew the French or Italian flag could not legally be boarded by the Royal Navy. By 1928 no slave dhow had been intercepted for six years and it w as clear that the naval patrol w as no more than a deterrent to large-scale trading. Various other expedients were proposed. It was som etim es suggested that the anti-slavery patrol should work from disguised dhows, but it would have proved too hard to conceal the aim of these vessels for more than ten or twelve days after they had first searched a suspect ship. The possible use of am phibious aircraft w ith naval vessels w as first raised by the Adm iralty in Decem ber 1926, when they enquired whether a sm all floatplane could be carried on a patrolling sloop,- but it w as later found that there was not enough space on board a sloop to stow a suitable seaplane. In early 1928, however, as the Air M inistry took control of the defence of Aden, the Adm iralty proposed that one or two aircraft from that station be detailed for work with the Royal N avy in the Red Sea. Trenchard took up the idea, but privately hoped that aircraft m ight not merely com plem ent but eventually replace the naval patrol. The Air Officer Com m anding at Aden w as ordered to investigate the matter, w ithout betraying the ulterior purpose of the Air M inistry. From October 1928 two floatplanes were stationed at Perim, the southern gateway to the Red Sea, and these m achines began experim ental patrols. Trenchard did not reveal his plan to replace the sloops until the appearance of his N ovem ber 1929 paper on air power in which he suggested that two flying boats, each equipped with a sm all gun and a searchlight, could perform the duties of the Red Sea patrol more efficiently and cheaply than naval vessels.36 Although not yet worked out in detail, Trenchard's schem e showed promise, but it w as never im plem ented in the form he had proposed. The difficulties were several. There w as usually a heavy sea running at the southern end of the Red Sea and floatplanes were often unable to alight on the open water. Furthermore, dhows were lively craft and even in a calm a floatplane could not go alongside one w ithout grave risk of damage. A seaplane could not legitim ately take action against a dhow unless there were clear proof that slaves were on board, but such evidence could only be obtained by search since aircrew could not identify the cargo of a dhow from the air. A slave runner m ight resist if discovered, and a dhow could put up a very good fight against a stationary seaplane, even if the latter were covered by a second m achine circling overhead. Flying boats had a longer range, carried heavier weapons and were more seaworthy, thus these aircraft seem ed to prom ise a more practical alternative to the floatplane. But there were other problem s which technology could not solve alone. The right of the Royal N avy to

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board and inspect dhows w as based not on written law by on custom ary usage; and the novel em ploym ent of aircraft to arrest and search suspected slavers m ade a challenge to the entire practice more likely. For aerial patrols to be effective, aircraft would have to search the African coast and land in French, Yemeni or H ijazi territorial waters. In the event, Foreign Office fears of the diplom atic com plications that an air patrol would involve overcame the technical argum ents in favour of substitution.

Conclusion The lengthy dem arcation disputes between the War Office, Admiralty and Air M inistry had, by the early 1930s, defined the lim its of air substitution. It w as clear from the very outset that effective air policing needed the co-operation of ground units, but the provision of these troops led to a rupture between the air force and the army. When the War Office refused to provide armoured car com panies for service in Iraq the Air M inistry set about raising its own units, and the RAF armoured cars, despite their tactical lim itations, becam e a characteristic feature of interwar policing. Local levies were also formed, usually under Air M inistry control, in the territories for whose defence it w as responsible. These bodies were cheaper than im perial regulars, often more mobile and alw ays more fam iliar with local conditions. The existence of such forces also gave the various im perial governments an opportunity to enlist the support of m arginal social groups who m ight otherwise have been a source of violent opposition to im perial rule. Contrary to the established view, co-operation between air and ground forces in the Empire w as close, and effective m ethods of com m unication and tactical co-ordination were gradually worked out. The bitter disputes at m in is­ terial level do not seem to have adversely affected operations in the field, as the exam ple of Palestine in 1936 clearly illustrates. Trenchard attem pted to extend the domain of the air force at the expense of the navy, but his strategy of substitution at Singapore and in the Red Sea ultim ately failed. The Cabinet w as unwilling to take m ilitary risks at the nodal point of Britain's Far Eastern Empire; and the diplom atic objections to air policing in the Red Sea were too strong to be overcome by technical argument.

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1 The sharp end of Empire: bombs falling on the village of Al-Neija, Aden Protectorate, September 1937 (PRO AIR 5/1299)

overleaf 2 Vickers Victoria m bomber-transport of No. 70 Squadron above the River Tigris, Baghdad (IWM HU.44941, A. Williams Collection)

3 Designed from the outset as a compromise, the ungainly Vickers Vildebeeste was not a success (IWM MH.24)

4 The deserts of Iraq were not kind to vehicles: repairs to the front axle of an armoured car from No. 1 Company, RAF (IWM HU.49856, Fagg Collection)

5 A flying demonstration by a Fairey MF 'to impress the natives', Tanga airfield, Tanganyika, 1932. Note the Africans directly beneath the aero­ plane crouching on the ground (PRO AIR 2/1519)

6 Adaptation: Zeidi troops at Dala in the Aden Protectorate built dug-outs as a precaution against British bomb­ ing. The picture shows one after its capture by Imperial forces in 1928 (PRO AIR 5/1299)

P A R T II

C H A P T E R FIVE

The geographical environment of air policing

Geography defines the lim its of the possible. Geographical structures underlie m any of the enduring patterns of m ilitary activity - the traditional routes of invasion, the length of the cam paigning season and the siting of defensive w orks which were often built and rebuilt over a period of centuries on the sam e com m anding ground. The favoured tactical m ethods of any pre-industrial army were greatly influenced by the geography of its homeland: Hannibal, for example, recruited his best light infantry from the Spanish and Balearic m ountains, and his m ost fam ous horsem en from the North African steppes. Geographical events also affect m ilitary history in the very short term. M ilitary narratives of the traditional kind abound with descriptions of sudden storm s and unexpected fogs, of dust clouds which hid advancing enemy m asses and of rising rivers which swept away vital pontoon bridges. The story has been told countless tim es of the sudden thaw during the retreat from M oscow which m elted the ice of the river Berezina and left N apoleon's army - its boats already burnt - stranded on the far bank at the m ercy of the C ossacks. But the constraints im posed by the environment on m ilitary activity were not absolute or static, for during the industrial age technological development began to erode the barriers of geography. T h is chapter discusses one aspect of that erosion. It considers air policing in term s of the interaction between political or m ilitary power and som e societies on the margins of Empire. Its object is to describe and explain the changes brought about by the police bomber. T h is is not mere­ ly a question of the interaction between hum an beings and their geo­ graphical environment - it is an issue of political control, of the ability of central government to intrude more persistently into the lives of desert nomads, m ountain tribes and N ilotic pastoralists. The chapter consid­ ers how far aircraft extended the arm of the state into isolated regions, and assesses the extent to which barriers of clim ate and geography continued to lim it the exercise of air power. A structural change is identi-

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tied, but the particular events through which structural change w as made m anifest are kept well to the fore. The concepts of 'structure' and 'event' serve as tools of analysis rather than as organizational principles.1

The long arm of the state Before the industrial revolution the effective range of central govern­ m ent w as strictly lim ited by geography. The early m odem state, with its permanent bodies of armed men, its tax gatherers and instrum ents of justice, w as m ainly an outgrowth of settled agricultural plains, acces­ sible coastlines, navigable rivers and the towns which grew up in those areas. Only those regions of com parative w ealth could support the prodigious cost of the state apparatus. Extensive areas of swampland, m ountains or deserts usually remained marginal to the activities of the state. Their poor com m unications offered at best slow and costly access to the cum brous regular armies,- their inhabitants were often w arlike or elusive; and their com parative poverty usually made the prospect of im posing settled rule unattractive. The O ttom ans found the northern m ountains of Iraq, for instance, to be 'an alm ost impenetrable fortress' for the Kurdish population, while the Shia tribes and the desert confed­ erations were long able to resist the expeditions occasionally sent to subdue them .2 From the middle of the nineteenth century, however, the increasing pace of technical advance gave the state new instrum ents of power, the political concom itants of the transition from a low energy to a high energy culture. Railways, steam ships and telegraphs enabled m ilitary force to be more rapidly m oved and more effectively controlled; m edical im provem ents began to protect soldiers from the ravages of disease,- breechloaders and m achine guns m ultiplied their destructive­ ness. The lim its to the power of the pre-industrial state were, of course, not im posed solely by geography, but they were eroded in part by technological change. Fernand Braudel has used the survival of the vendetta to m easure the geographical range of the state. Broadly speaking, where the collective retribution of an im personal state m echanism had failed to penetrate, there the vendetta remained in force. In the sixteenth-century M editer­ ranean it still existed in the Berber countries, in Corsica, Albania and Sardinia - all m ountainous regions 'that had not been m oulded and penetrated by m edieval concepts of feudal justice'. The blood feud w as also practised during the 1920s in m ost of the areas actively policed by the air force. The tribal feuds of the Hadhram awt 'cut fam ily from fam ily and not only brought death to m any but narrowed and im poverished the lives of the living'. N uer political society in the Southern Sudan depended upon balanced antagonism , expressed in frequent warfare and

AIR POWER AN D C O L O N I A L C O N T R O L

feuds. Bloodwealth w as paid or reprisal taken in the Som ali hinterland, on the Indian Frontier, and am ong the desert nom ads of Transjordan or south western Iraq. The persistence of these m ethods of dispute indi­ cated the lim ited im pact m ade by the judicial m achinery of the state. The gradual encroachm ent of government, and the influence of air power, can be detected by the 1930s in the lower incidence of feuding and livestock raids (another barom eter of government control).3 The existence of the blood feud suggests the boundaries of effective state power. Those lim its were partly determined by geographical features and partly extended by the aeroplane. The police bomber brought about a structural change in the relationship between state power and the m argins of Empire in three distinct zones: in swam plands, in m ountains and in deserts. The Southern Sudan is a perfect exam ple of the first. The region w as threaded by num erous rivers of which the Bahr-el-Jebel, Bahr-el-Zeraf, Bahr-el-Ghazal and Sobat, converging just south of M alakal, were but the m ost prominent. Between M ongalla and M alakal, a distance of about 300 m iles, the w aters of the N ile fell only a few feet. Fifty inches of rain m ight fall in a year, m ainly during the sum m er m onths, when the branches of the river, choked by a tangled m ass of reeds, spread across the flatlands to form a vast, barely penetrable swamp. Apart from occasional lakes, the region then becam e a m ass of sudd: papyrus grass twelve feet high, standing in two or three feet of water. Crocodiles and hippopotam i abounded in the rivers and the lakes; herds of elephant in the dryer parts. Here the N ilotic peoples, the Shilluk, the D inka and the Nuer, lived a precarious and impoverished existence on the scattered patches of dry ground that remained when the floods were at their height. In 1927 Harold M acM ichael (then C ivil Secretary of the Sudan) visited Nuerland and described it as 'the m ost dism al portion of the Sudan - a Serbonian bog into which has drifted or been pushed all the lowest racial elem ents surviving North of the Equator and a great deal of equally decayed vegetation'.4 The sudd w as undoubtedly an effective m oat against the inroads of civilization. M ilitary operations by ground forces were only possible for a few m onths each year. The rains usually began in April, were heavy from the end of May, and turned the country into a gigantic inundation by June. Regular troops could not operate effectively in this grasscovered swamp, interspersed w ith rivers and lagoons, until the floodwaters had subsided. The grass was usually dry enough to be fired in November, and the soil was burnt and deeply fissured by December. The clim ate w as at its m ost lenient in the early m onths of the year, and it was then that punitive colum ns were sent deep into the southern provinces to briefly remind the people that the government existed. By March

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intense heat and drought taxed the endurance of im perial troops. Conversely, the fighting m ethods of the N uer were well suited to these extrem es of clim ate. When threatened they would withdraw with their cattle, along w ays known only to them, to dry islands hidden in the heart of the swam ps. Regular troops were often unable to follow, or could fight the elusive tribesm en only at a disadvantage. The N uer would w ait in their refuge until drought, flood, exhaustion or fever forced their ene­ m ies to retreat.5 The balance of power in the Southern Sudan w as dram atically upset by the introduction of the aeroplane. Provided air bases could be established and supplies brought up, there w as little to prevent aircraft reaching into the furthest strongholds of the m arshes. Operations against the C arluak N uer in early 1928 exem plify the destruction of this geographical im m unity. When pursued by ground forces the N uer followed their traditional Fabian strategy, retreating with their cattle onto islands deep in the swam ps. Imperial troops tried to com e to close quarters, but failed, because foot soldiers, even if lightly equipped, sank up to their necks in water, while boats or rafts could not be used in the high and dense papyrus grass. Although ground forces could not pene­ trate this citadel, they blockaded all exits and prevented any escape. The N uer suffered severely from hunger and m osquitoes; their young calves died and their cattle becam e ill; but only the bomber could com pel their capitulation. From 24 January the Royal Air Force repeatedly attacked both the N uer and their herds in the area around Lake Jorr. By 3 February, 3,900 people, m ostly wom en and children, had surrendered, and 7,000 head of cattle been captured. The N uer had believed them selves im ­ mune from government, at least until the waters fell, and the aerial attacks had come as a tremendous shock. Later the sam e year, the Air Staff urged that the squadron in the Sudan replace m ilitary patrols, claim ing that aircraft w ould im press the population with the 'long arm ' of government, and 'the ubiquity of its instrum ents'. The aeroplane violated the sanctuary of the very safest sw am ps.6 The air force also policed several barren and m ountainous regions. In the Aden Protectorate a parched coastal strip, som e twenty m iles broad im m ediately behind the port, gave way to the arid foothills of the South Arabian M ountains. Further inland the country of the Yemeni plateau becom es more fertile, but no less rugged. The northernmost Iraqi villayet, along the borders with Persia and Turkey, runs into the m ountains of Kurdistan where the air force waged alm ost annual cam paigns during the mandate: the m em oirs from this period often describe the m ajestic beauty of this highland region. Along the North West Frontier of India, the steepest m ountains policed by the air force formed a natural, battlem ented fortress. The border w ith Afghanistan,

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the Durand line, divided this range with little regard to ethnic bounda­ ries. Of the few m ajor routes across these m ountains, the Khyber Pass, along which ran the road from Peshawar to Kabul, was by far the m ost fam ous.7 These m ountain regions had a distinctive relationship to central government. Braudel has noted that m ountains are 'prim arily an ob­ stacle'. From this sim ple prem ise flow all manner of political, social and m ilitary conclusions. The great civilizations, confined chiefly to the lowlands, were alm ost powerless to ascend these 'vertical norths'. The hills were a refuge from civilization; from its tyrannies, its religious orthodoxy and, above all, from its soldiers. The concept of 'm ountain freedom' aptly com bines these geographical and political realities. Em m anuel Le Roy Ladurie has also applied the notion to the lives of shepherds in the south of France in the early fourteenth century. In his celebrated study of the village of M ontaillou he observes that 'the tentacles of the Inquisition had not yet extended to an altitude of 1,300 m etres'.8 M ountains were no less a barrier to the infantry of the British Empire. An 'unadm inistered zone' along the Afghan frontier bore w itness to the inability of the Indian government to im pose its own notions of 'order' upon the Pathan tribesmen. Calw ell em phasized that hill warfare, a 'special branch of the m ilitary art', created outstanding difficulties for regular soldiers. The hillmen, often experienced warriors, knew the terrain far better than the regulars. Arm ies supplied by pack transport crawled slow ly through the roadless m ountains, while hilltop m arks­ m en extracted a steady toll of lives. M ountain winters were severe,- and nature also provided lethal m issiles, in the form of rocks, boulders and trees, that could be rolled down upon imperial colum ns. Operations on the Punjab frontier in 1897-98 resulted in heavy loss to the regulars at the hands of tribesm en now arm ed w ith m odem rifles. In the 1920s the Zeidi Iman occupied tracts of m ountain country in the Aden Protector­ ate. The Aden government w as obliged by treaty to defend the hinter­ land tribes, but no m ilitary operations to recover the lost territory were attem pted. It would have proved too costly, in lives and money, to send imperial troops into the high, barren and rocky Audali country, where there was alm ost no water, no roads and no sustenance.9 Aircraft could surm ount these natural defences, for m ountains were not an im possible barrier to the exercise of air power. In clear weather a reliable aeroplane could fly around or over jagged peaks, quite inacces­ sible to formed bodies of foot. A squadron m ight cover the length of a rugged m ountain pass in a few hours, while a punitive column, encum ­ bered by pack baggage, delayed by obstacles and harassed by snipers, m ight take as m any days. Air power dram atically extended the reach of

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the state into m ountain regions whose inhabitants had successfully defied the dem ands of government. During 1928 the Giga Khel and N ekzan Khel M ahsuds, two sm all transhum ant sections on the Frontier, kidnapped two British subjects. T o avoid retribution they announced their intention to spend the winter in their high sum m er quarters, 8,000 feet above sea level, where they hoped it w ould prove too difficult and costly to send a m ilitary expedition against them. Bombing operations were begun towards the m iddle of November. Within a few days the sections had subm itted and returned the captives. In Aden, aircraft could alone fulfil British treaty obligations to the hinterland tribes, for an outlay the Treasury w as prepared to support. There w as no need to send expensive punitive colum ns into the interior, nor to establish an elaborate adm inistration, for aircraft could reach into the m ountains, resist Zeidi encroachm ents, keep vital trade routes open, and m aintain a tribal status quo acceptable to the Aden government. The m ountain citadel becam e a fortress without a roof.10 Deserts, the third zone of structural change, provided the archetypal environment for air control. It should not be im agined that they consisted wholly of sandy waste, devoid of vegetation. In the Arab countries a desert m ay be defined as land in which the norm al rainfall is too sparse for agriculture. Som e desert areas were fertile in years of good rain, while other parts supported shrubs and, in the winter, m ight appear alm ost green w ith grass and flowers. The Syrian Desert, across which m any policing operations were flown, w as of this type. Roughly triangular in outline, it is bounded to the w est by the fertile regions around the Jordan, to the north and east by those around the Euphrates, and to the south by the sand seas of the Arabian Peninsula. The Syrian D esert covered m ost of Transjordan, particularly the region east of the Hijaz railway,- and m uch of Iraq south-west of the Euphrates, about a third of the country in all. The unfam iliar desert im ages and sensations left a lasting im pression upon m any aircrew who served in the mandated territories. Basil Embry lucidly evoked these feelings when he recalled that 'to a newcomer it appeared as endless m iles of nothing, but to the old hand it had a strange fascination and he saw in its changing m oods another kind of beauty. Personally I never tired of it, and for som e tim e after returning home in 1 9 2 7 1 had an intense longing to return.'11 D eserts have an internal coherence but have alm ost always divided, rather than united, com plex civilizations. They, like m ountains, are the great barriers; political, econom ic and military: 'the m ost evident areas of separation and protection'. Napoleon observed that, 'of all obstacles which m ay cover the frontiers of empires, a d e sert... is incontestably the greatest. M ountains like the A lps take second rank, and rivers the third.' He w as doubtless recalling his unsuccessful cam paign in Egypt and

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Syria; but even by the end of the nineteenth century, regular arm ies were little more able to penetrate deep into the desert than they had been in the age of Bonaparte or, indeed, of C rassus. The reasons were manifold. A colum n often encountered scorching heat and found little fodder for its anim als or food for its men. Above all, water w as scarce. Supplies for the entire force had to be carried with the troops and supply trains grew to an enorm ous size, even to the point where the arm y becam e 'a mere escort for its food'. M odem engineering had done som ething to lessen the protective power of the desert. In m ore elaborate or prolonged cam paigns railw ays were built to carry supplies, pipelines put down to pum p vital oil or water, and wire netting tracks laid across the desert as im prom ptu m otor roads. N evertheless, rails and tracks were often blocked by sand, pipelines were vulnerable to sabotage, and these m ethods of supply were often too slow or too costly for sporadic punitive warfare. The pursuit of H ijazi rebels in Transjordan during the sum m er of 1932, for instance, w as severely hampered by an arid, sandy desert, broken by rugged m ountains, deep w adis and ravines, in which vegeta­ tion and water alike were scarce.12 In 1946 Albert Hourani observed that 'new m eans of com m unication are breaking up the closed local com m unity; the life of the Bedouin is threatened by the m otor car, the aeroplane and the extension of civil authority'. Bombers and armoured cars transform ed m ilitary relations between the desert and the sown. For centuries the impoverished and w arlike Bedouin, unconquered in the hostile spaces of the desert, had raided settled com m unities, and som etim es subdued them. The aero­ plane helped to reverse the flow of this aggression, by dram atically extending the lim its of government action. N om ad raids, if they were detected in time, could be broken up and turned back by bombers long before they reached their objectives. Governm ent com m ands could be backed by violence far into the desert, without the cost or risk of a ponderous expedition. Clear skies and long stretches of hard, level ground were an ideal theatre for bombers. When Wahabi raiders threat­ ened Transjordan in 1928, only aircraft could confront them far enough from M aan to save the town. In the sam e year the Sheikh of the Beni Bu A li set up his own custom s post, defiantly flying the Wahabi flag, at Sur in the G ulf of Oman. Living with his tribesm en deep in the arid interior, he felt im m une from im perial retaliation. But the Empire struck back. In March 1932, Rangoon flying boats, based in the Gulf, flew over the Sheikh's im pressive fort at Jaalan, and dropped leaflets threatening its destruction, unless the Sheikh accepted a custom s post under British protection at Aiqa. Once he realized that the heartland of his power w as vulnerable to the bomber, he gave in to the British dem ands.13 The reach of the bomber into the desert brought the beginnings of

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settled adm inistration. The accretion of m ilitary power offered by the aeroplane ensured that government com m ands could be enforced more system atically than before. T h is w as especially true in Transjordan. The ancient rhythms of nom adic life no doubt conflicted with the different regularities of the m odem bureaucratic state, and the Bedouin ignored political boundaries, straight lines on a map, in their endless search for pasture. Unexpected m igrations and persistent raids challenged the authority of government, and threatened com plications with neigh­ bouring states. In 1930, after frequent raiding into N ejd by Transjorda­ nian tribes, the Tribal Control Board declared a prohibited zone. Any tribe found in the area would be considered a raider, and would be liable to m ilitary attack - by aircraft above all. The zone was abolished a few m onths later, but set up again in 1932, after the presence of Bedouin near the frontier had hampered aerial reconnaissance. The government encouraged the tendency of nom ads to settle, for a sedentary population w as easier to adm inister and to control than the true Bedouin, who m ight wander hundreds of m iles for pasture. The disposition to settle depended directly upon the allotm ent of land, and upon the efficiency of government m easures to prevent raiding, am ong which aircraft patrols were the m ost effective. In July 1927 G. S. Sym es visited Transjordan, and reported favourably upon the progress made in the 'orderly govern­ m ent' of the nomads, which he ascribed largely to the fact that the air force 'now operates freely in the w aste over which the Bedouin tribes­ men were formerly the undisputed lords'.14 The successful control of desert raiding did not have wholly benefi­ cial effects. Although doubtless an affront to 'orderly government', livestock raids were essential to the precarious equilibrium of nom adic life, one of the balanced antagonism s which alone enabled survival in the inhospitable harshness of the desert. N om ads and cultivators en­ joyed a sym biotic relationship punctuated by interm ittent hostility. Each autum n the average nom ad family, which possessed about twelve cam els, sold one or two beasts to the settled population to purchase food and clothing for the following m onths. Those fam ilies who owned no cam els relied upon raids carried out by their men to gain the essential livestock. Since poor m en would naturally raid more actively than the rich, raiding tended to even out inequalities in wealth, and provided som e insurance against absolute poverty. As raiding w as gradually prevented, the very poor were reduced to hunger and despair, the natural balance of nom ad society w as upset, and the rough equality of the desert began to give way to an embryonic class structure. T his w as far from being the original intention. Glubb Pasha recalled that 'when we set ourselves enthusiastically to the task of reducing chaos to order, we had no forebodings. We embarked with enthusiasm upon a programme

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which appeared to us entirely benevolent and hum anitarian, the substi­ tution of peace and security for endless bloodshed and v io le n ce .'15 The extended reach of the aeroplane could also consolidate adm ini­ stration in certain cultivated areas. U ntil the'twentieth century, British authority pressed only lightly upon the Aden Protectorate. Little at­ tem pt w as m ade to control or adm inister the hinterland tribes, provided the fortress of Aden w as itself secure. From the tim e of the Great War, however, the Zeidi Iman of the Yemen placed increasing pressure upon the tribesm en as he asserted his claim to the entire Protectorate; during the 1920s, Zeidi forces gradually encroached upon Protectorate terri­ tory. Air control w as established at Aden m ainly because aircraft could operate in the occupied territory quickly, effectively and cheaply. But air power not only allowed the Aden government to reach into geographi­ cally m arginal areas: it positively required a broad defensive zone for its m ost successful use. Aircraft had to have room for manoeuvre, because they could not stop a Zeidi advance along a physical obstacle near to its objective. A s the Air Staff observed, air power, 'to be effective, cannot be confined in narrow geographical lim its'. Bombers needed adequate warning of Zeidi attack, so Political Officers were pushed into the outlying regions of the Protectorate to gather intelligence; armoured cars and levies no longer acted as a static garrison for Aden fortress, but spread into the hinterland where they offered a light defensive screen to delay a Zeidi advance while air attacks were carried out. The tribesm en grew aware that their defence depended on the air force, so they looked more and more towards Aden for m ilitary support. T hus 'a Protectorate antithesis to the Imanic thesis', an embryonic South Yemeni state, began to coalesce around Aden. 'The aeroplane finally destroyed the m ilitary basis of South Arabian isolation ism .'16

Time and space Aircraft extended the reach of the state not only in space but also in tim e. The despatch of a punitive colum n to a defiant area necessarily involved lengthy delays. Troops had to be assem bled, transport am assed, and the progress of an expedition through difficult country, in the face of active opposition, was often a tedious affair. Aircraft were swift. They in­ creased the power of the state to m ake war. Air policing enthusiasts never seem ed to tire of remarking that the aeroplane could 'nip trouble in the bud' before it had tim e to become a serious threat. Once the destructive visitation of a colum n was over, and the soldiers had withdrawn, dissidents usually gained a long respite before the next punitive operation. Aircraft offered a less com forting interlude. When

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aeroplanes were employed to m aintain internal Order', one raid could follow another, alm ost indefinitely, at intervals of only a day or a few hours. By acting swiftly, aircraft could prevent an 'incident' from devel­ oping into an insurrection. It is a liberal com m onplace that the m ost effective deterrent to disobedience is not the severity of punishm ent, but the certainty of its application. The Air Staff often claim ed that the greatest 'incentive to good behaviour' would be to follow any opposition to government policy by sw ift and sure reprisal, adm inistered by the bomber. Aircraft could strike targets one or two hundred m iles distant at a few hours' notice, and 'officers who are in action in W aziristan in the morning m ay be playing polo at Risalpur in the afternoon'.17 The very speed with which aerial action could be initiated, however, led to som e concern that punitive m easures m ight be too readily employed. Bombing w as cheap, quick and often effective. It was there­ fore tempting, when faced w ith defiance of government authority, to order hasty and needless air attacks. The investigation and redress of grievances w as a laborious, lengthy and often unrewarding process, so it som etim es seem ed easier to bombard dissidents into subm ission in­ stead of seriously addressing the issues that troubled them. These questions arose during a long and acrim onious debate about policy on the Frontier. The advocates of 'control without occupation' suggested that aircraft could police the unadm inistered zone at m inim al cost: their opponents claim ed that air reprisals could not tackle the fundam ental political and econom ic problem s of the region, even if they could contain their violent m anifestations. From 1920 an expensive forward policy of m ilitary occupation w as pursued along som e sections of the Frontier. M etalled roads were built in W aziristan, to provide local employment, to encourage trade between the tribes and British India, and to reduce the econom ic incentive to raid. Irregular troops, stationed am ong the tribesmen, provided a constant reminder of the government presence. During a House of Lords debate in April 1930, on the occasion of Trenchard's m aiden speech, Lord Lloyd supported the forward policy in Waziristan. The peaceful penetration of the region had produced what he called 'civilization and pacification', which could not be achieved by the bomber. Swift and certain retribution, it w as often claimed, could not effectively replace patient adm inistration.18 The danger that the bomber m ight be employed as a violent substitute for effective civil adm inistration w as undoubtedly real, even if the air force repeatedly warned against the tendency. But the defenders of air control could reply, w ith som e justice, that the aeroplane also advanced peaceful contact between government and population. The policing aeroplane was not merely destructive, for it could also be used to transport representatives of the colonial state to the remoter parts of

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their territory, and thus bring them into closer touch with the subject peoples that they governed. Poor com m unications were one of the greatest obstacles to the more effective adm inistration of the Southern Sudan, for the country w as barely passable to D istrict Com m issioners except during about four m onths of each year. Aircraft could quickly take them to any place served by an open airfield, which w as possible for m uch more of the year than travel on the ground. Grievances could thus be speedily settled face to face. Air travel w as rapid, knd gave D istrict Com m issioners, particularly these new to the work, a m uch better idea of the country than could be gained from a slow trek through the long grass. At a tim e when the centrifugal forces of nationalism , especially in the white dom inions and India, were drawing the elem ents of Empire further apart, rapid air com m unication exerted an opposite influence. M inisters could more easily tour the Empire, as was dram atically dem onstrated by Sam uel Hoare's im perial flight in 1927. After being enthusiastically greeted during his trip, Hoare som ew hat pom pously observed that 'here w as a British M inister descending from the clouds, and visiting, in the course of a few weeks, the whole line of British influence from M alta to C hitral'.19 The power of a state is also partly a function of its knowledge. Brian Bond has suggested that, unlike wars between European powers, colo­ nial conflicts are more 'cam paigns against nature' than against hum an opponents. T h is view certainly understates the resistance which som e indigenous polities m ight offer to a European force, but the contention still carries m uch weight. Few Victorian generals possessed adequate m aps, even of areas which, like South Africa, had been under British influence for decades. A m ilitary colum n operating in uncharted m oun­ tain or sw am p w as alm ost bound to m ake the occasional blunder when fighting tribesm en who knew the lie of the land, the likely routes of advance and the best places for am bush. Som e of the worst im perial defeats of the nineteenth century can be partly explained by inadequate or faulty knowledge of the ground. The Egyptian troops of H icks Pasha, for example, were annihilated when they lost their way in the Sudan in 1883.20 Aircraft allowed the state to w ield more effective power in remote regions, by increasing its knowledge of those areas. The first aerial photograph had been taken from a balloon over Paris as early as 1858, and techniques had m uch improved by the end of the century, but it w as only through the stim ulus provided by the Great War, w ith its enormous dem and for detailed trench plans, that a recognizable science of aerial cartography emerged. A m ap is not merely a system of representation,it is a basis for informed action and hence an instrum ent of power. M ap­ m aking from aerial photographs w as easier and cheaper than traditional

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methods, for it required m uch less surveying on the ground. Large air surveys of Northern Rhodesia and the sudd country of the Sudan were carried out, while knowledge of the Hadramawt area of the Aden Protec­ torate was greatly increased through aerial photography. On the North West Frontier of India, aircraft were used to com pile a 'Tribal Directory' which listed the resources, population and defensive structures of every village in the Frontier region. T h is encyclopaedia was m uch used both by m ilitary intelligence and the civil adm inistration. M any villages could not be easily reached by road or on horseback, or had hostile inhabitants: aircraft were therefore the m ost useful m eans of intelli­ gence. But aeroplanes not only extended state knowledge; to be effec­ tive, air policing demanded accurate information about tribal dissi­ dents. The norm al life of tribesm en could only be dislocated by bombing if their social and econom ic existence w as precisely understood. The knowledge gained by aircraft reinforced the power of the bomber.21 D istance is the first enemy of the state, for it dilutes power. Aircraft suddenly m ultiplied both the speed and radius of potential m ilitary action, but distance also remained the first enemy of aerial activity. The geographical spaces of the British Empire were vast. The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, som e 1,300 m iles from north to south and 1,000 m iles from east to w est at its widest point, had roughly the sam e area as the whole of Western Europe. M alakal, at the head of the sudd country, is over 400 m iles from Khartoum, and the land of rivers and m arshes stretches south for the sam e distance to the border with Uganda. Iraq was slightly larger than Great Britain, as w as the Aden Protectorate, if the uncharted area of the Hadramawt is included. But air force activity w as fragmented less by the distances within imperial territories, daunting though these were, than by the vast size of the entire imperial sprawl. Aircraft based at Suez or the N ile Delta, the busy intersection of several lines of imperial air com m unication, had a flight of over 1,000 m iles down the valley of the N ile to reach Khartoum. From Cairo the route to Baghdad, via Jerusalem and Am m an, w as 800 m iles flight; Karachi, the aerial gateway to the Indian Frontier, lay more than 1,600 m iles further east. Distance, however, should not be m eas­ ured sim ply in absolute mileage, but rather in structural terms. The distance between m ajor air bases, m easured in m iles, w as still m ulti­ plied in flying tim e by the intervening hazards of prim itive landing grounds, rocky coastlines and long stretches of waterless desert. The barrier of distance is perhaps best understood in term s of its reverse, the lim ited range of aircraft. The m achines which performed the work-horse functions of air policing during m ost of the 1920s, Bristol Fighters and de H avilland 9As, derived their m ain operational features from the wholly different geographical spaces of the Great War. A dm it­

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tedly the cam paign in M esopotam ia w as fought in country which would later be a m ajor theatre of air policing, but m ost British aircraft were tailored to the dom inant requirem ents of the Western Front, where the outposts of the opposing trenches were som etim es only a few hundred yards apart. For the battles over France or Belgium, long endurance w as not essential and w as usually sacrificed by designers in favour of other qualities. When these aeroplanes were translated to the wider spaces of the Empire, it is not surprising that their range w as som etim es found too short. In particular the lim ited operational radius and sm all m ilitary load of the Bristol Fighter was a constant handicap in the Aden Protec­ torate. After Zeidi forces had occupied parts of the Audali country it w as difficult at first to eject them by air action alone, as the Bristol Fighters, if they were to carry an effective bomb load, could not operate m uch further than 120 m iles from Aden itself. During skirm ishes between Zeidi forces and Awdhali tribal auxiliaries in 1925 som e valuable Awdhali land w as lost, partly because the supporting aircraft were operating at the very lim its of their endurance. N or could Bristol Fighters m ake the round trip to the Imanic capital of Sana, on the Yemeni plateau.22 The effective tactical radius of short-range aircraft could be extended by the construction of forward airstrips. These were patches of cleared and roughly level ground, usually occupied only for a short tim e. As early as the sum m er of 1921 it w as suggested that emergency dum ps of fuel and bom bs be established deep in Kurdistan to increase the effective reach of aircraft operating from Kirkuk against T urkish troops in the far north of Iraq. Advanced landing grounds were of especial importance to Bristol Fighters. Operations in the Aden Protectorate in the sum m er of 1925 showed that a landing ground w as needed at Shukra, seventy m iles up the coast from Aden, if the aircraft were to reach targets in the hinterland w ithout straining their endurance. Even once aircraft with a longer range had replaced the Bristol Fighters, advanced landing grounds remained necessary for operations against the Hadramawt tribes. It w as a taxing problem to replenish these forward bases, often deep in roadless and inaccessible country, but dhows could bring up supplies if a landing ground were near the coast. In February 1938, for example, all stocks of petrol and bom bs for the advanced base at Fuwa were first taken by dhow from Aden to M ukalla, a journey of about five days, before being unloaded and sent on to Fuwa by lorry. Installations at m ost of these advanced airfields were either spartan or absent. When Freya Stark crossed an RAF landing ground on the road to Shibam in the Hadram awt in 1936, she found it to be 'scarce distinguishable from the general sm oothness of the valley floor'. Elsewhere, landing grounds were rougher and m inor accidents on uneven ground were com m on.23

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Air power in a resistant medium Karl von C lausew itz, in what is probably his m ost celebrated image, perceptively suggested that activity in war resem bled an attem pt to wade through deep water. T o Clausew itz, all m ilitary activity w as like m ovem ent in a resistant m edium - a constant struggle against a pervasive 'friction', in the form of m isleading orders, adverse weather, false intelligence and a m ultitude of other unforeseen delays and com plications, which slowed the m ovem ents of any body of troops and made even the sim plest action m ost difficult.24 The previous sections of this chapter dem onstrated how aircraft extended the reach of the imperial state both in tim e and in space, and allowed the rapid exercise of force in som e remote areas whose physical features had hitherto posed a formidable barrier to the m ilitary power of central government. Aircraft altered the structural relationship between m ilitary activity and geographical space, but they by no m eans made such activity independent of its physical context. Even the exercise of air power was in som e w ays like m ovem ent in a resistant m edium . Furthermore, aircraft were impeded by other form s of environm ental resistance which affected their peculiar operational m edium alone. T h is section am pli­ fies and qualifies in detail the broad generalization that aircraft length­ ened the arm of the state, by exam ining the extent to which the environment, and above all the clim ate, remained a m edium interm it­ tently resistant to air policing. Aircraft did not achieve entire im m unity from m ountain barriers. H eavily laden aeroplanes often had difficulty in lifting a useful m ilitary load to the heights at which som e m ountain villages were located. The Bristol Fighter, as its nam e suggests, w as originally conceived as a fighting aircraft, but w as later converted to army co-operation duties. When eventually pressed into service as a bomber its operational ceiling w as m uch reduced by a heavy load of m unitions. When raiding Zeidi positions in the m ountains of the Aden Protectorate, for example, the altitude of the targets som etim es strained m achines performing a role for which they had not been designed. Powerful rising and falling airstream s often swirled around the m ountains, particularly during the hot m onths of the year, and these were both a hazard and a help to air force pilots. When a heavily laden aeroplane, approaching a range of hills, had to be swung in a wide circle to gain enough height to cross, a current of air, rising over the contour of the ground, m ight suddenly lift the m achine over the peaks, often lowering it again on the far side. These up and down draughts am ong the m ountains frequently disrupted regular form ations, suddenly separating aircraft by as m uch as 500 or

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1,000 feet in altitude. It could be fatal to m isjudge the air currents. Stanley Vincent recalled how one officer, while m aking a farewell tour of Kurdistan, attem pted to fly low over a ridge to im press his passenger. The wind was from the other side, the aircraft w as sucked down by the descending current and dashed to splinters against the alm ost vertical cliff face. Both pilot and passenger were instantly killed.25 Policing aircraft lacked blind-flying apparatus, and could not operate in m ist or cloud. In the Aden Protectorate from Decem ber to March, although there was little rain, flying was frequently hampered by regular m ists - known to the Arabs as A m A m m a - which gathered in the valleys, rolled up to the plateau by about eight or nine in the morning, aided by a southerly wind, before being dispersed around midday by the heat of the sun. The sudden descent of low cloud am ong m ountains was especially hazardous. In February 1928 the Zeidis kidnapped two sheikhs under British protection. Air reprisals were begun on 21 February, after the usual warnings, but these were soon prevented by low cloud which settled on the m ountains from 24 February until 9 March. While the aircraft were grounded, however, agents secretly scattered warning leaflets at night in an effort to sustain the 'm oral effect' of bombing. When this ultim ately successful cam paign w as described to the Cabinet in July 1930, the Air Staff quite untruthfully claim ed that bombing had been suspended until 10 M arch to allow the Zeidis a chance to surrender. Along the North West Frontier visibility could be reduced from 100 m iles to 100 feet in five m inutes if the clouds suddenly shut down on the m ountains. During operations against the Shabi Khel in August 1924, for instance, som e pilots were gradually forced lower and lower by de­ scending cloud. They attem pted to escape by chasing the contours of the valleys, until eventually the wet, opaque greyness closed in com pletely and the aircraft flew into hillsides. Although the aeroplane extended the reach of the state into m ountainous areas, this reach w as heavily qualified by unfavourable weather.26 M ost policing aircraft were m echanically unreliable. They were often forced to m ake emergency landings, for which jagged and m ountainous terrain w as distinctly unsuited. Operations over the South Arabian M ountains were m ade hazardous by the country, which precluded a safe emergency landing anywhere near the target. Kurdistan w as 'one ragged m ass of precipitous m ountains' in which an aircraft could rarely descend w ithout serious risk of death or injury to its crew. In northern Kurdistan during the sum m er of 1921 the air force attacked T urkish troops who sheltered in villages deep in a narrow valley, bordered on one side by 4,500 feet of alm ost sheer m ountain, dense with scrub and sm all trees, and on the other by hills rising to 2,500 feet. It seem ed im possible for an aircraft to land intact am ong such forbidding terrain, but after one

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m achine had been shot down, two others skilfully picked up its badly injured crew. Confronted by sim ilar country in southern Kurdistan two years later, Arthur Harris insisted on rigorous inspections between each flight to reduce the risk of fatal crashes caused by engine failure. The policy wearied the m echanics of his squadron, but guarded the lives of his aircrew. Even in som e desert areas the broken ground prevented a successful forced landing. In October 1922, for instance, a Vickers Vernon flying the Cairo to Baghdad air m ail crashed in the Transjorda­ nian lava country, which at that point w as too rugged to allow a relief m achine to land nearby. The occasional fatal crash could not prevent policing operations, but the pervasive fear of engine failure over the m ountains undoubtedly gnawed at air force morale, as not only the inhabitants but the very landscape itself seem ed hostile to the aviator.27 Even prepared landing grounds in m ountainous areas could be very hazardous, as they were usually sm all, often uneven and alm ost always surrounded by m enacing hills. Razm ak airfield on the Frontier w as especially difficult to use, being compared by one pilot to 'a pocket handkerchief which had been pasted onto the lower slopes of a m oun­ tain'. The field w as 5,000 feet above sea level, w as deeply rutted by water pouring down from the m ountains, and had an awkward slope, which m eant that m ost aircraft, lacking wheel brakes, could only land in one direction, regardless of the wind. It w as surrounded by m ountains, which created the unnerving im pression for the pilot, when approaching to land, that he was about to dive into the ground, and a resulting tendency to pull back on the stick had to be resisted, otherwise the aircraft would stall too soon. It was rumoured am ong aircrew that a quarter of all aircraft trying to land there crashed in the attem pt, and only pilots experienced in m ountain conditions were allowed to use the base. Im m ediately behind the old airfield at A m m an there w as a deep gorge into which underpowered or overloaded aircraft were som etim es sucked by a downward airstream, usually requiring several m inutes to gain enough height to clear the surrounding hills. Eventually it was decided that heavily loaded m achines should no longer operate from Am m an, but from the new airfield at Ziza, som e twelve m iles to the south.28 Razm ak airfield w as especially cramped, but elsewhere the sm all size of som e landing grounds also im posed serious operational lim itations. When a flight of aircraft replaced one battalion of the Aden garrison in 1921, it w as originally suggested that it be equipped w ith the DH9A, but this w as found inadvisable as the Protectorate airfields were scarce and sm all. Bristol Fighters were supplied instead as their landing and take off run w as very short. The old age, lim ited endurance and sm all bomb load of the Bristols constantly impeded operations in the mid-1920s, and it w as often proposed that they be replaced by long-range bombers, or even [100]

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by twin-engined aircraft, but this could not be done unless the landing grounds in the region were enlarged. The situation w as further com pli­ cated by the transfer of 8 Squadron to Aden early in 1927. Its de Havilland bombers could now operate from the airfields of the Protectorate, these having apparently been extended, but it proved too costly to enlarge at the sam e tim e the landing grounds which served the detached flight in Som aliland. Bristol Fighters were therefore retained by this unit until the resources needed to enlarge the Som ali airfields becam e available. These problem s were later eased throughout the Empire, partly as more bases were extended, and partly by technical innovation, for the special­ ist policing aircraft that first entered service in the later 1920s were designed from the outset to use cramped airfields. The Vickers Vincent, for example, which served from the early 1930s, although larger, faster and heavier than previous types, w as still able to operate from sm all air bases because it possessed wheel brakes.29 An airfield could be m ade useless by heavy rains which saturated its surface and bogged aircraft down or overturned them when they taxied or cam e in to land. Flooding from tim e to tim e affected airfields as far apart as Am m an and Singapore, but the problem w as persistent in the Sudan. In early 1920 an advanced aerodrome w as established at N asser, to allow operations against the G arjak N uer in Sobat D istrict. T ailskids and tyres were badly damaged by the hard, cracked cotton soil during the dry m onths, but by early M ay the rains transform ed the airfield into a m arshy inundation, unusable for days at a tim e. Even Khartoum air base was prone to flooding in the wet season, and the establishm ent of advanced landing grounds in south-eastern Sudan w as hampered by the rains, which not only prevented flying, but also cut vital lines of supply. The rains did, however, m ake reconnaissance easier. From February to April, visibility in south-eastern Sudan w as curtailed by the natural m istin ess of the air and by sm oke from the extensive grass fires, which burnt the country black and obscured objects on the ground. With the beginning of the wet season around the end of April the atm osphere becam e more lucid, and the country grew green w ith the shoots of young grass. Although aircraft could penetrate the sw am py heartlands of the Southern Sudan, their operations were still hindered by extrem es of clim ate.30 The use of floatplanes on the southern lakes and rivers could partly overcome the obstacles posed by the rainy season in the Sudan. The headquarters of 47 Squadron were transfered to Khartoum in October 1927, and from Decem ber the squadron w as equipped w ith the Fairey IIIF, a type of aircraft fitted with interchangeable wheel or float under­ carriages. Operations were at first confined m ainly to land bases, but W ing-Commander Sholto D ouglas later led a tour of the Southern

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Sudan, to assess the suitability of the region for floatplanes. M alakal w as the nodal point of the Sudan for floatplane operations, for there the land of sw am ps and rivers began. At Mongalla, Juba and N im ule there were long reaches where an aircraft could com fortably land, while throughout the sudd country an aeroplane w as rarely beyond gliding distance of a stretch of water on which a safe descent was possible. There were, however, several obstacles to the effective use of floatplanes. Many lengths of river were blocked by m asses of sudd, drifting islands of papyrus grass and water weed, which would wreck any floatplane attem pting to land: other reaches were too fast, too winding or were broken by cataracts. The soft m ud bed of the lakes and sw am ps offered little purchase to a screw picket, and a passenger m ight have to wade through m any yards of water before an aircraft could be firm ly moored. M osquitos, w atersnakes and leeches torm ented the aircrew once they had disembarked, and an attack by hippopotam i or crocodiles could cause loss of life or irreparable damage to the fragile floats. Above all, individual floatplanes could do nothing to solve problems of supply, and still depended upon fuel and m unitions brought up by river vessels confined to navigable channels.31 Areas of dense forest had long provided sanctuary from the state. The m aquis or m acchia - densely set evergreen oaks, m yrtles and broom, with a thick undergrowth of thorn bushes and scrub - w as m ost developed in Corsica but widespread throughout the M editerranean basin, where it sheltered refugees and outlaw s. Indeed, so close w as the relationship between vegetation and law lessness, that the term m aquis, originally of purely botanical significance, eventually cam e to describe an outlaw or guerrilla.32 The police bomber certainly made an im pact upon the inhabitants of the swam plands, m ountains and deserts of the Empire,- but it was wholly ineffective over its forests. Although aircraft could cross hundreds of m iles of forest in a few hours, their crews could see nothing beneath the sheltering canopy of trees. Aircraft, of course, could not land in the forest as they could on hard and level stretches of desert. When a large-scale rebellion began in Burma in 1932, the bombers of the Royal Air Force could neither strike against the insurgents nor gam er intelligence of their m ovem ents. The political asylum offered by the forest w as never invaded by the aeroplane alone, but only later - by helicopters and defoliants. Aircraft in flight were vulnerable to sudden storm s which blotted out visiblity, scattered form ations and sent m achines m iles off course. Poor weather made flying inadvisable on about fifteen per cent of days at M osul in Iraq, and perhaps twice as often on the Frontier, although conditions in Egypt tended to be more favourable. The difficulties

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im posed when the weather suddenly worsened during a m ission are clearly shown by a propaganda raid over Kurdistan on 24 February 1923. Twenty-two aircraft took off to drop warning proclam ations am onst the followers of Sheikh Mahmud, but bad weather prevented all but two from reaching the target. Violent thunderstorm s over the South Arabian M ountains frequently interrupted or prevented aerial operations, thir­ teen aircraft out of twenty-one dispatched failing to reach their objec­ tives in the Yemeni hinterland during one raid in A ugust 1928. Once the cold weather had ended on the Frontier, operations took place in an uncongenial spring clim ate which alternated between oppressive heat and sudden storm s, the latter m aking flying both difficult and danger­ ous. H ailstones of great size threatened to damage the Vickers Victorias engaged in the Kabul airlift, and to guard against this possibility each aircraft w as blanketed while on the ground in a protective shroud of over three hundred m atresses sewn together. It took seven men as m uch as three-quarters of an hour to em place this covering. During the winter in the South-Western D esert of Iraq, air force personnel, living in the open at advanced landing grounds, were assailed by frost, snow, strong winds and thunderstorms, before intense heat set in later in the year.33 Policing biplanes were light and not especially powerful, and their operations could be hampered or entirely prevented by strong winds. In Kurdistan a violent easterly, known as the Reshaba, blew periodically for days on end, occasionally attained a velocity of eighty m iles an hour, and som etim es prevented all flying; but even when aircraft could ascend they were often unable to reach their targets against the forceful gales. Even a light wind could hinder flying if it w as carrying dust or sand, which infiltrated the m ost delicate m achinery of guns and engines, prevented m aintenance, obscured visibility and m ade flying hazardous. In the Sudan violent and sudden h ab oob s - sandstorm s up to 5,000 feet high and twenty or thirty m iles wide - were frequent during the sum m er, especially around Khartoum. An aircraft carrying Sir Edward Ellington between Wadi Haifa and Khartoum in M arch 1923 had to clim b to 8,000 feet to escape dust and sand. In Iraq, during the driest part of the year, dust storm s som etim es rose to the alm ost incredible height of 15,000 feet. During the hot weather in Iraq, aircraft som etim es encountered groups of sand devils, 'those strange and nearly vertical whirlwinds, drawn up from the desert in swirling pillars that can reach to thousands of feet, and wander across the em pty skies like living things' - an aeroplane caught by one of these would be tossed about as if w eightless. In the Aden Protectorate between M ay and Septem ber the South-West M onsoon w as often heavily laden w ith dust, and it w as one of these sandstorm s which caused the fatal crash of a Fairey IIIF in A ugust 1928 by suddenly blotting out the ground.34

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Every m em oir of service in Iraq bitterly recalls the unbearable su m ­ m er heat of the M esopotam ian plain. Between July and September, the hottest m onths of the year, the temperature often rose to 120 degrees Farenheit in the shade, where shade could be found, while in a tent the therm om eter m ight clim b above 130. Even though their fabric w as painted a reflective silver, m achines left out in the sun rapidly deterio­ rated as wooden parts became brittle. In Egypt, propellers which had been m ade in Britain soon curled in the hot, dry air, and had to be replaced by ones of local m anufacture. During the hot weather on the Frontier, visibility w as excellent early in the morning, but gradually worsened throught the day as the air heated up and developed 'that shim m ering haze which alw ays made one feel that one's eyesight w as defective'. The hot air became turbulent as it rose, and even by the middle of the morning it w as hard to m aintain close form ation in the rough conditions. Petrol was stored in drum s at each air base along the desert route from A m m an to Baghdad, and at the numerous emergency landing grounds scattered around the various theatres of operations, but this rapidly evaporated in the sum m er heat. Moreover, pilots often did not entirely trust stocks of fuel which had been left out a long time, owing to the poor conditions in which they were stored, and were reluctant to use this petrol except in direst emergency, usually carrying a piece of cham ois to strain out the dirt, rust and even water that accum ulated. Bombs from old wartim e stock, used to save money, also became unreliable when held at outstations. Refuelling of aircraft or armoured cars during the hot hours of the day occasionally resulted in a disastrous explosion of petrol vapour.35 If the burning heat of Iraq had a detrim ental effect upon m achines, it w as perhaps yet more wearing to men. When the outside temperature rises above blood heat, prolonged hum an activity becom es difficult. When they worked on aircraft in the open, airmen had to periodically im m erse their m etal spanners in buckets of water, otherwise they burned their fingers. Refuelling an aeroplane by heaving four-gallon petrol drum s to the tanks on the upper wing was nearly as fatiguing a process as hauling heavy transport aircraft on the ground, but a special electric truck w as developed to perform the latter task and avoid the exhaustion of ground crews. Training w as either relaxed during the hottest m onths of the year, or continued at special hill stations where the weather was cooler. In Iraq these were at first sited in the high m ountains behind Rowanduz, but this was found to be too remote, and it w as not until a sum m er camp in attractive country near Am adia was opened in June 1931 that the arrangements became satisfactory. Never­ theless, however arduous the air force found the M esopotam ian clim ate, its operations were less affected by the intense heat than were those of

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the army, and this difference w as adduced by the Air Staff in favour of the schem e for air control. Both the fighting and the m otive power of an arm y were primarily supplied by the m en them selves, while an air force, by way of contrast, relied to a m uch greater extent upon machinery, which w as less affected by extrem es of temperature. Foot soldiers were alm ost alw ays exposed to fever and exhaustion while on active opera­ tions, whereas air force personnel, when serving at large, permanent bases, could be sheltered and refreshed in m odem barracks.36 The rarity of the atm osphere w as another com paratively minor problem posed by clim ate. Although Aden w as alm ost at sea level, its atm osphere w as appreciably less dense than that of Britain. The low est monthly m ean occurred in June, when the air averaged ninety-one per cent of the standard British density, and extrem e m inim a of eighty-nine per cent were not unknown in m idsum m er. The rarity of the atm osphere greatly reduced the rate of clim b, especially at higher altitudes. It became dangerous to fly heavily laden m achines near the ground, except at high speeds, and all landings had to be m ade m uch faster than norm al.37 In Western Europe the insect is not norm ally considered hostile to aviation, but in the Empire policing operations were occasionally hampered by locust swarm s. One officer who served in Iraq recalled that 'it is difficult to describe the im pressive horror of a plague of locusts. They did not com e in thousands, but in m illions or even billions.' They would darken the sky across a broad front, in a colum n stretching from horizon to horizon, perhaps 200 feet high, which m ight take a day or more to pass. During the sum m er, the wind over the Yemeni plateau occasionally blew from the north, for a few days at a time, often carrying with it flights of locusts in July and August. When a swarm covered an airfield, the de Havilland 9A, with its water-cooled engine, had to ascend with the shutters of the radiator closed, otherwise it would become permanently clogged with insects. The engine boiled, but the aircraft soon rose above the locust cloud and the shutters could then be reopened. Sholto D ouglas encountered a sim ilar swarm in the Southern Sudan, and the engine of his aircraft rapidly overheated as the radiator became choked with locust corpses. The big air-cooled radial engine of the Westland Wapiti, however, was less affected, as the insects caught between the cooling fins of the cylinders were soon incinerated, and the period of overheating w as brief. Flocks of kitehaw ks feeding on anim al carcasses or looking for refuse were a hazard at airfields on the Frontier, for the birds had a wingspan of alm ost six feet, and could damage or even destroy an aircraft in a collision. The interplane struts on the early W apitis were held fast in ball-and-socket joints solely by the tension of bracing wires. On one occasion a hawk collided with one of these struts,

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forcing it out of position, causing the wings to collapse and the aircraft to crash, killing both crew. The struts of other m achines were accord­ ingly modified and bolted into place, which suggests that the threat of collision w as taken seriously.38

Conclusion Air policing can usefully be understood in relation to geographical space. The aeroplane widened the frontiers of regular government interference. The repressive use of the bomber extended the lim its of government action in m arginal areas which had hitherto resisted the encroachm ents of the state. Aircraft could intrude into the swam py sanctuaries of the Southern Sudan,- they could leap over the m ountain barriers; and they could reach far into the m ost arid regions. The beginnings of effective adm inistration often cam e in the wake of the bomber, and the decline of som e traditional m ethods of dispute m ay be attributed in part to the new m ilitary sanction. Aircraft could act rapidly, which im plied a risk that the bomber m ight become a substitute for patient adm inistration, but which also helped to bring government into closer touch w ith remote populations. Nevertheless, the aeroplane did not entirely erode all physical ob­ stacles to m ilitary action. The barrier of distance w as reduced but not elim inated by the reach of the aeroplane. Geography has its events, and a descent of low cloud or m ist, a sandstorm or a period of high winds all occasionally prevented air policing operations. Locust sw arm s and bird strikes, which by analogy m ight be called zoological events, were an interm ittent hazard rather than a prohibitive risk. The stifling heat of M esopotam ia exhausted groundcrews, evaporated petrol and damaged aircraft. N or should the presence of the state be sim ply equated w ith its power. The aeroplane certainly conferred the ability to intrude into marginal areas, but this did not in itself im ply that the imperial state could exercise control over the inhabitants of those regions. The author­ ity of the state is not a dialogue between hum anity and the physical world but an interactive relationship between state and subjects. Those who were on the receiving end of police bombing were not m erely passive victim s of a force beyond their control, for they too could partly m ake their own history, as the next chapter shows.

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CHAPTER SIX

Indigenous responses to air policing

The shocks and interruptions, the inconvenience and indignity of it all, will tell in the end. The civilized nation will go through the same three phases as did the semi-civilized tribe: alarm, indifference, weariness; followed ultimately by compliance with our will. Wing-Commander C. Edmonds, at the Royal United Services Institution, 12 December 1923' Any exam ination of imperial policing which aim s to do more than study the police them selves should raise the question of indigenous response, for policing is not sim ply a set of regulatory institutions; it is a dialectical relationship between the police and the policed. Yet those few histori­ ans who have written about air policing have given scant notice to the victim s of British bombers. David Killingray has suggested that African and A sian tribesm en were less aw estruck by imperial technology than the proponents of air power liked to believe, while Anthony Clayton has briefly noted som e m ethods devised by insurgents to reduce the im pact of aerial attack, but beyond these few sentences historians have been m ostly silent.2 One half of the m ilitary equation has been ignored. The intricate service battles in Whitehall and strategic planning for im perial defence doubtless offer the historian more accessible terrain than the obscure reactions of tribal peoples to air power. But no attem pt to evaluate the processes of air policing can be satisfactory without an effort to understand reactions on the ground. The lack of scholarly attention to indigenous reactions is better ex­ plained by the preoccupations of historians than by an absence of primary evidence. Adm ittedly only a few of the docum ents about air policing deal directly with the responses of African and A sian peoples,but the total quantity of evidence is so vast that even this tiny percentage am ounts to a considerable body of m aterial. The operational reports of the Royal Air Force are the m ost valuable written source. The policing m issions flown during the interwar period were numerous, running into

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thousands of sorties, and pilots often recorded their im pressions of the real or imagined responses of the people they were bombing. M ost attacks were carried out at low or m edium altitudes, in clear weather, and their targets were alm ost alw ays at least partly visible. Aerial photographs give som e indication of the m aterial destructiveness of bombing. The opposition encountered, and the loss or damage it in­ flicted, were carefully recorded. The changing techniques of policing them selves reveal som ething about the extent and nature of indigenous adaptation. Once bombing had been carried out, political officers often opened negotiations, and their reports, based on close contact w ith in­ digenous peoples, frequently refer to the tem per of a com m unity after it had suffered attack. The evidence is scattered and fragmentary, but it can be found, if one chooses to look for it. The quantity of evidence is, however, only one aspect of the problem: the biases of that evidence are equally important. The societies sub­ jected to air policing did not usually possess the elaborate bureaucracy whose documentary residue is of such value to the historian. M ost of the peoples attacked by the Royal Air Force were not literate, and therefore could not record in writing their reactions to the new technology of destruction. Such w ritten evidence as there is em anates alm ost entirely from the im perial bureaucracy, reflects the biases of individual func­ tionaries and the im m ediate needs of im perial adm inistration, and at best records indigenous reactions as they were perceived by Europeans. C autious judgement m ust be exercised when relying upon such percep­ tions for insight into historical reality. T his is partly a m atter of sem antics: an awareness that 'native cunning' is imperial jargon for 'tactical skill'. It also involves a dissection of the imperial bureaucracy (and of its surviving records) into a m ultitude of component parts, each seeking to defend particular interests and to im pose a corresponding outlook. Air M inistry officals, for example, when arguing the case in favour of air policing, tended to play down the resiliance of indigenous peoples; operational records are often more frank about the opposition encountered; but new tactics intended to outw it this opposition are perhaps m ost revealing of all. Y et it should not be imagined that imperial perceptions developed entirely independent of reality: it is precisely because m en were attem pting to understand, predict and ultim ately control the real world that the evidence they leave is of historical value. If the existing literature about indigenous responses to air power is distinctly thin, there is at least one related body of secondary work that can be drawn upon with profit. The emergence of large-scale air policing in the 1920s in m any respects recalls the introduction of the machine gun during the European conquest of Africa forty years before. In both cases rapid technical development gave European powers a dram atic

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m ilitary lead over their opponents. The varied African reactions to European firepower in the late nineteenth century have been exten­ sively studied. Som e societies capitulated in despair. Som e invoked religious force to redress the im balance of m aterial power: others devised new tactics to reduce the im pact of m odem weapons. A few acquired m achine guns for them selves. These reactions occurred singly and in differing com binations. N evertheless, the literature on the m achine gun, often of high quality, suggests questions, offers insights and provides avenues of approach to air policing. T h is chapter collates the primary evidence, com pares and contrasts it w ith reactions to the m achine gun, and offers a typology of response to air power.

Expectations Before considering indigenous reactions them selves it is appropriate to examine the various predictions about such responses that were m ade by imperial officials. It w as often supposed that the very novelty of aviation would induce terrified subm ission to imperial authority. T his w as a com pelling argument. The pioneering achievem ents of aviation, such as the first crossing of the A tlantic by air in 1919, still occasioned m uch excitem ent even in the industrial countries. The aw esom e qualities of the aeroplane were particularly em phasized when policing in Africa w as discussed. The Air Staff were to to deploy this argument as late as 1930 when urging the extended use of air power in the East African territories. But they were wary of overplaying their hand. If the im pact of air power w as held to reside chiefly in its novelty then air policing w as open to the obvious objection that such novelty was a w asting asset. Trenchard w as far too shrewd a politician to fall for this. While m aintaining that unfam iliarity m ight induce panic upon first contact with aircraft, he w as never prepared to accept that the value of aircraft to colonial government depended upon their strangeness.3 Argum ents both for and against air policing were frequently couched in term s of the alleged racial characteristics of the people it w as proposed to police. Existing social and econom ic conditions in given territories were often translated into racial assum ptions about their inhabitants. Army officers in particular tended to employ racist terminology in debate. In October 1928, for example, General M ilne (the CIGS) opposed the extended use of air power in the Sudan, arguing that no display of government force offered 'any real safeguard against outbreaks am ongst fanatical and ignorant people', and suggesting that the presence of aircraft, even if their fighting power were known, would not have a 'lasting deterrent effect on the Oriental m ind when it is excited by

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religious or racial propaganda'. Sim ilar language w as employed by Major-General Louis Vaughan, the Com m andant of the Staff College at Quetta, in 1922. He claim ed that 'civilized' Europeans and 'uncivilized' tribesm en were psychologically quite different. While the nerves of the former would eventually collapse under the strain of continued air bombardment, the 'little sensitive psychology' of the tribesm en would soon allow adaptation to the novel form of attack. These racial argu­ m ents against air policing are typical, and exam ples could be m ulti­ plied.4 The supporters of air policing occasionally employed sim ilar racial strategies for their own, quite different, ends. In 1922 LieutenantGeneral Claud Jacob (the C G S India) approved the extensive use of air power over Afghanistan on the grounds that 'against Orientals an early offensive was of the greatest importance'. W ing-Commander N orm an Bottom ley told the boys at Marlborough School that 'the more prim itive a race is, the more it respects sheer power'. He used this assum ption to justify the m ethods of air policing. European access to technically advanced weapons w as som etim es belived to reinforce existing psycho­ logical patterns of racial dominance. Leo Amery adopted this argument in 1927 when he suggested that 'the white m an at Aden should be represented in highly efficient form'. In June 1928 J. L. Maffrey (the Governor-General of the Sudan) described the regions of the Upper N ile in deliberately evocative language. He suggested that the provinces were 'a m orass of ignorance', claim ed to have detected an 'uneasy stirring am ong the ancient strongholds of superstition and witchcraft' and advocated air substitution in the Sudan because only the weapons of the air force could w ithstand 'tidal onslaughts of hordes of fanatics'.5 These racial theories were, however, not typical of those used by air power enthusiasts, who instead tended to em phasize not the uniqueness of the people being bombed but the uniqueness of the bomber itself. T his accorded more closely with the aim s and prejudices of the Air M inistry. At the Q uetta Conference of July 1922 John Salm ond clearly stated his belief that 'hum anity w as the sam e the world over'. On this basis he argued that the population of Kabul would react to bombing in m uch the sam e way as the population of London: repeated attacks on any urban centre would eventually produce a loss of nerve. Salm ond suggested that reactions to bombing characteristically went through three phases. The initial attacks m ight produce a sudden panic, particularly if the people in question had never been bombed before. Once it was realized that bombing did not produce extensive m aterial damage, however, panic w ould soon give way to indifference or even contem pt for the air attacks. Finally, after a sustained bombing offensive, the continued disruption of everyday life would create intense w eariness and a longing for peace. Sal-

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m ond's 'three-stage' theory w as adopted by Trenchard w ith enthusiasm and eventually becam e standard Air Staff dogma. Its appeal is under­ standable. It em phasized the distinctive qualities of air power; it ex­ plained the frequent failure of bombing to achieve rapid results; and it justified an independent air offensive against targets as dissim ilar as Paris and W aziristan.6 Adrian Desmond, in his perceptive study of mid-Victorian palaeon­ tology, has shown how the tw ists and turns of dinosaur reconstruction reflect the ideological objectives of particular palaeontologists. Even the emergence of 'true' scientific theories cannot be satisfactorily explained sim ply in term s of a 'scientific' reaction to new fossil finds.7 There are points of contact between D esm ond's 'Victorian dinosaur' and the 'native' of imperial m ilitary debate in the 1920s. A s employed by army and air force officers, im perial adm inistrators and politicians the term 'native' is not merely a descriptive category, but also a series of ideologi­ cal constructions. The debates about the probable responses of indige­ nous peoples to air power perfectly illustrate how ideas becom e instru­ m ents w ith which social groups seek to advance their various interests. Opponents of air policing created an image of an insensitive and resilient 'native' who would be im m une to the terrors of sustained air bombard­ ment. The supporters of air power generated contrasting theories of 'native' characteristics which furthered their rival objectives. John Salm ond's 'three-stage' theory radically reconstructed both 'native' and 'European', elim inated their differences and gave m axim um weight to the power of aerial attack. Salm ond's 'native' w as politically too useful for Trenchard to resist. However deep the differences between the services over the question of air substitution, one central Air M inistry assum ption appears to have passed unchallenged. The apologists for air policing repeatedly claim ed that aircraft would prove quite invulnerable to tribal retaliation. The speed and suddenness of air attack, com bined with the difficult target offered by a sm all and rapidly m oving aeroplane, m ade it hard to imagine how tribesm en could inflict loss upon the air force. The imagined invulnerability of aircraft was cited as further evidence in favour of air control in M esopotam ia. In April 1920 the Air Staff suggested that tribesm en would regard the air force as 'a foe against whom their efforts can effect little'. The supposed im m unity of the aeroplane w as usually contrasted with the known vulnerability of ground troops, who often suffered heavy casualties in punitive operations, besides offering the tribesm en the tem pting prospect of loot. In Decem ber 1923 WingCom m ander Edmonds publicly claim ed that the chance of hitting an aircraft with a rifle shot w as so sm all that tribesm en would not w aste valuable am m unition in the attem pt. Professions of faith in the im m u­

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nity of the aeroplane seem to have outlived even the rude facts of operational loss. A s late as 1931 N orm an Bottom ley claim ed that against the aeroplane the tribesm an could 'only shake his fist and hurl the curse of Allah'. The Air M inistry w as unwilling to concede so persuasive a debating point.8

From terror to adaptation The various expectations of imperial officials having been briefly exam ­ ined, the responses of indigenous peoples them selves should now be considered. Predictions that the mere sight of aircraft would terrify have already been noted and were som etim es confirmed. In August 1922 Wahabi raiders attacked two villages between Am m an and Z iza in Transjordan. While the raid w as in progress an aircraft carrying spares to a stranded m achine flew overhead. Upon seeing the aeroplane the raiders broke off their attack and rapidly retired, although the pilot and m echanic of the passing m achine did not even notice the fighting and never fired a shot. It is, however, difficult to say for certain whether this retreat w as inspired by panic; what seem ed like panic to the British m ay have been prudence to the tribesmen. Glubb Pasha recalled a more telling incident that took place in the South-Western D esert of Iraq in the early 1920s. While attem ping to gather intelligence his pilot landed the aircraft near the encam pm ent of som e shepherd tribes. Glubb clim bed out of the aeroplane and walked over a low rise towards the tents. 'I was just in tim e to see their panic-stricken inhabitants running madly away, throwing occasional terrified glances over their shoulders at the grounded aircraft.' When he reached the tents he found them com pletely deserted. These sudden panics at the unfam iliar sight of aircraft were, however, very rare. U sually the lethal effects of air power had to be revealed before terror w as induced.9 Salm ond's 'three-stage' theory noted the possibility of panic as an initial reaction to bombing; several other com m entators agreed with him. When the unfam iliar weapons of air warfare were first encoun­ tered, the results were indeed occasionally dramatic. The Wahabis raided in the vicinity of Z iza again in A ugust 1924, but this tim e were m et by bombing, with im m ediate and decisive effect. The burst of the first bomb turned the Wahabi advance into a retreat which soon became a disorderly flight as the raiders were followed up by aircraft and armoured cars. Wahabi prisoners confirmed that they could w ithstand rifle fire and would even advance against armoured cars but 'were terrified of bom bs which they did not understand', although how far this statem ent was generated by the structure of the interrogation m ust

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remain uncertain. Gerrard privately expressed surprise that the coura­ geous Wahabis should have been so easily deterred by air action and confessed that the 'm oral effect' of bombing had been more than he had expected. T his incident seem s to confirm that the opening phase of bombing operations could produce a sudden and decisive stampede. Shock and fear were undoubtedly com m on reactions to the first experi­ ence of air attack; but m ost tribesm en seem to have contained any initial tendency to panic - sudden flight or surrender were the exception in air policing operations. T h is of course does not disprove the 'three-stage' theory, which accepted that only prolonged bombardment could guar­ antee imperial success.10 The initial reactions of subject peoples to air power did, in som e respects at least, conform to British expectations. Several people pre­ dicted that the mere sight of aircraft would terrify tribesm en into a stampede, and this did som etim es happen. More often it w as believed that only lethal attacks would produce panic - som e indigenous peoples were indeed terrified by their first experience of air bombardment. John Salm ond seem s, therefore, to have been partly justified in m aking panic the first of his three phases of response. Only later, when subject peoples were more fam iliar with aircraft, would they dem onstrate unforeseen powers of adaptation and resistance. It is perhaps best to define adaptation. A s employed in this chapter it encom passes all non-violent m eans of reducing the im pact of aerial action, including both psychological and religious adjustm ent to air raids and those tactics adopted to dim inish their m aterial effects. T actics evolved to reduce the im pact of bombing include concealm ent by darkness or cover; the em ploym ent of dispersed fighting formations,the use of natural or artificial protection from bombing; the develop­ m ent of early warning system s; and techniques of deception. Each of these categories is discussed in turn, and com parisons with African adaptation to the m achine gun are kept in mind. The extent and success of indigenous adaptation to air power w as hardly foreseen by either the opponents or the supporters of air policing. Several historians have noted how som e African societies invoked religious force to offset the overwhelming advantage conferred on Europeans by superior m ilitary technology during the period of parti­ tion. Such spiritual adjustm ent can be seen as a form of psychological adaptation to dram atic changes in the m aterial world. T h is tendency w as m ost marked, or at least has been best documented, in the East African rebellions against European rule between 1896 and 1905. T. O. Ranger has claim ed that innovating religious leadership played an important part in co-ordinating resistance, and he has identified the M wari cult in M atabeleland as one of the m ost significant exam ples of

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this tendency. Although Ranger's broad hypothesis has been success­ fully challenged, som e details of his work still stand. M ost relevant w as the dispensation of 'm edicine' to the rebellious adherents of Mwari: this prom ised protection from the white m an's bullets. John Iliffe and others have seen a sim ilar process at work in the Tanganyikan rebellion of 1905. Each rebel accepted the M aji, or water medicine, to obtain im m unity from European weapons. It w as held that M aji would turn m achine gun bullets to water, and in som e areas its distribution appears to have overcome an entirely understandable reluctance to face Euro­ pean firepower. These discussions suggest an exam ination of the role played by religion in African reactions to air power.11 Som e elem ents of a religious response to the advent of the aeroplane can be identified am ongst the Southern Sudanese N uer in the 1920s. N uer religion was m onotheistic, focussed upon a single god or spirit, known as Kwoth. God w as a spirit of, or in, the sky, particularly associated with the heavens, but omnipresent, rather like the air or wind. He w as the creator and father of all things, before whom the N uer saw them selves as foolish and sim ple ants overwhelmed by divine omnipotence. Although Kwoth w as the single spirit, other spirits were held by the N uer to exist as particular m anifestations of Kwoth, including the spirits of the air, the spirits of the above and the spirits of the below. All m anifestations of spirit were associated w ith particular anim als, individuals or social groups; but all N uer worshiped spirit. Kwoth therefore had a structural dimension: it reflected the tension between fission and fusion characteristic of N uer society, and bore the im press of the N uer social and political order. A s a result of the gradual encroachment of im perial power, this order w as undergoing significant change, and charism atic prophets who challenged British authority began to appear. The sm aller sections of any group within N uer society norm ally tended to be m utually hostile, only fusing in the face of external hostility. A tribe was the largest N uer social unit whose m em bers recognized a m utual obligation to combine for m ilitary action, and to pay each other blood wealth in com pensation for murder; tribes did not norm ally com pensate each other. Different tribes m ight som etim es com bine to raid the neighbouring Dinka, but such com binations were created for a specific purpose and were very short-lived. The priesthood of the egalitarian N uer was not especially significant. Individuals possessed by a particular spirit, and held to have prophetic powers, were far more influential. The behaviour of som e prophets w as eccentric: they ate excrem ent and ashes, fasted until delirious and m um bled or shouted to them selves. The political signifi­ cance of the prophets lay in their appeal across tribal boundaries. When the influence of the Lou prophets Ngundeng and Gw ek w as at its height,

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com pensation w as for a tim e paid between the Lou and G arjaak 'tribes'. Prophecy w as a recent development in Nuerland, the first important prophets having arisen at the tim e of M ahdism in the 1890s, and their emergence w as a structural change in N uer society in response to the growing external threat of government. A powerful, encroaching state created a need for greater pan-tribal cohesion. From 1920, m ilitary aircraft helped extend the reach of the state into the less accessible regions of N uerland.12 The extent to which the encroachment of air power influenced the development of N uer prophecy is open to debate. It is probable that N uer prophets would have achieved great influence by the 1920s even had aircraft not been employed in the Sudan, although the additional menace of air power m ay have accelerated the process. There is no doubt, however, that aircraft were predominant in the dram atic reaction of the Khartoum government against the prophets towards the end of the decade. N uer prophets were alm ost invariably opposed to the central government, since it w as largely through confrontation between the N uer and government that they had risen to positions of prestige and influence. The prophet Ngundeng had ordered the construction of an earthen pyram id between fifty and sixty feet high and one hundred feet in diameter, decorated with elephant tusks, spears, ostrich eggs and feathers, the work being com pleted under the direction of his son Gwek. It w as built to honour Deng, the spirit of the air, and to increase the prestige of his prophet. The pyramid becam e a cult centre for the whole of Eastern Nuerland, m uch sacrifice was performed there, and a kraal of special black and white cattle w as kept nearby for the purpose. After a series of incidents in 1927, the British decided to undertake m ilitary op­ erations against Gw ek and his followers, selecting the Dengkurs pyra­ m id as a target for air attack, in the hope that striking at this focus of religious veneration and political dissidence would undermine the influence of the prophet. The pyram id w as bombed in Decem ber 1927, but only superfical damage w as done. G w ek escaped, though he w as to die in a fight with ground troops the following year. Sacrifice w as a central part of N uer religious practice, the enactm ent of fundam ental convictions. God allowed m an free will, but punished sin by direct intervention in hum an affairs. Sacrifice w as undertaken from individual m otives to ward off danger or atone for sin, while collective sacrifice w as practised m ainly upon rites of passage, but also on behalf of entire com m unities in tim e of fam ine or epidemic. During calam ity the victim was usually an ox, but surrogates ranging from goats to cucum bers (always referred to as 'cows') m ight also be employed. The sacrifice was a gift to God, an intermediary between God and man,- and the greater the danger the greater the payment.

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When air reconnaissance w as carried out over the territory of the G arjak N uer in January 1920, the N uer regarded the m achines as objects from the 'unknown' to be placated by sacrifice. A sim ilar response followed the first bombing of the Dengkurs pyramid on 19 Decem ber 1927. The next day a second attack interrupted the progress of a sacrifice. A number of people were seen half-way up the pyramid, and a large white bull w as lying dead at its base. The ceremony w as abandoned as people ran to escape the m achine gun bullets and exploding bombs. In March 1929, air attacks were carried out against the Bui N uer in the region of Bahr el Arab. The tribesm en had hitherto doubted the existence of aircraft, but once the attacks began, offered sacrifice to ensure the m achines did not return. A s the aeroplanes were then withdrawn to Khartoum, the Bui N uer were satisfied w ith the outcom e of their devotions. These exam ples of sacrifice prompted by the intrusions of aircraft illustrate the efforts made by the N uer to incorporate the unfam iliar experience of air power within their established religious framework. In this respect they can be classed as a form of adaptation, even if they did not preclude the more pragm atic response of running away when attacked.13 It seem s reasonable to assum e that a growing fam iliarity with the effects of aerial bombardm ent would induce a m easure of psychological adjustm ent to its terrors. The evidence of the two world wars tends to confirm this view. Inhabitants of European cities raided on m ore than one occasion appear to have been less frightened during the second and subsequent attacks, unless they them selves had suffered injury, the death of a loved one or the destruction of their hom e.14 Air M inistry representatives, however, repeatedly denied that such psychological adjustm ent was possible; they usually suggested the exact reverse to be true - unless attacks were very light or interm ittent. John Salm ond claim ed the first eighteen m onths of air control in Iraq proved that 'fam iliarity with air action steadily increases the regard paid to it'. Conclusions drawn from the slight and scattered evidence m ust be tentative, but it seem s that Salm ond's view cannot be sustained. Although Yemeni troops rapidly retreated under the first shock of air action in A ugust 1925, they later dem onstrated 'a power of hanging on w ith which nobody had credited them '. Repeated engine failures and forced landings soon undermined the m ystique of the aeroplane. The defiant gestures m ade by som e tribesm en are particularly telling. In January 1932 thousands of leaflets were distributed in Dir country warning that aerial action impended; the following m onth som e of the docum ents were returned 'w ith rude m essages inscribed thereon'. Leaflets dropped over parts of the Aden Protectorate in April 1938 evoked a sim ilar response. A week after receiving a British ultim atum

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the tribesm en exploded an old bomb, a relic of a previous operation, 'as a gesture of defiance and derision'. The people in question had been raided ten years before and the experience left them 'insufficiently im pressed w ith the potentialities of aircraft'.15 Whatever the degree of psychological adjustm ent dem onstrated by tribesmen, there is no doubt they developed m ethods of tactical adapta­ tion. In this, their responses again recall those of Africans during the period of the partition. The devastating firepower of late-nineteenth-century weapons pre­ sented traditional African arm ies w ith a stark choice between reform and decim ation. Even before the invention of the m achine gun, efficient breechloading rifles were taking heavy toll of warriors brave or unim agi­ native enough to charge in dense m asses. The Z ulu victory at Isandlwana in 1879 w as won only at grievous cost, and even the courageous and disciplined im pis could m ake little im pression on the im perial square at Ulundi. By the end of the century those arm ies that had failed to adapt their tactics to the firepower of the m achine gun could look forward only to defeat. A vast Dervish army w as m echanically slaugh­ tered at Om durman in 1898 w ith alm ost no risk or loss to the victors. Som e African arm ies did develop new and effective tactics. During the Sierra Leone H ut T ax war of 1898 Bai Bureh, the ruler of the Kasseh chiefdom, led the Tem ne army with skill and som e success. He avoided pitched battle w ith the well-equipped im perial troops and relied instead upon guerrilla m ethods. H is m en fought defensively from behind stock­ ades in carefully prepared am bushes, or attacked com m unications and bottlenecks. Sam ori Ture fought a prolonged defensive cam paign against the French in the western Sudan in sim ilar fashion. He exploited the superior m obility of his troops, m ade short raids on heavy convoys, defended rivers or fords, and adopted a 'scorched earth' policy to deny foodstuffs to his enem ies. Just as som e African arm ies adapted to the m achine gun, so too did som e indigenous peoples adapt to the aero­ plane.16 One of the earliest, sim plest and m ost effective m easures w as to exploit darkness. Policing aircraft in the 1920s had no electronic navi­ gational devices, so aircrew had to detect their targets by sight alone. The bomber w as therefore far less deadly by night than by day, a lim itation tribesm en were quick to identify. By October 1923, villages subject to air raids on the North West Frontier were deserted by day, the inhabitants returning at night to carry out essential work such as the reaping of crops. T urkish regulars operating in M osul duing the autum n of 1924 noticed that aerial reconaissance w as routinely carried out only in the morning and evening; the soldiers accordingly m oved by night and at midday, and rested under cover at other tim es. In early 1928, Zeidi

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soldiers took advantage of darkness to raid deep into the Aden Protector­ ate. The response of the air force show s the success of these m easures. Delayed-action bombs, dropped by day but tim ed to explode at night, were used to deny tribesm en access to their villages and to create a sense of insecurity. When the stock of delayed action pistols ran short at Aden in spring 1934, night attacks were carried out whenever moonlight permitted. Parachute flares were som etim es used to illum inate the target.17 Air policing operations were flown over terrain which often abounded in natural cover. The hill country of Palestine, the palm groves of M esopotam ia, the m ountains of Kurdistan and the sudd of the upper N ile offered countless possibilities of concealm ent to those anxious to avoid the air force. Zeidi soldiers proved particularly adept in exploiting the am ple cover available in the Aden Protectorate. In the sum m er of 1928 Awabil fort w as bombed after its garrison had raided two villages under British protection; after these air attacks, the soldiers left the fort and took up a position under som e nearby cliffs where bom bs could no longer reach them. One method of concealm ent practised by the Suda­ nese N uer proved less successful. When attacked by the air force in January 1928 som e N uer attem pted to hide by running am ong their cattle, a tactic they later learned to avoid after heavy casualties to m en and anim als alike. In 1930 air reconaissance w as carried out over the territory of the Gaw eir Nuer. A s the aircraft approached, som e N uer tried to merge with the landscape by clasping tree trunks or large ant hills: others concealed them selves by remaining m otionless in the tall grass. In a further effort to pass undetected the usual sm oke fires, lit to ward away insects, had been replaced by m osquito nets. The position of the encam pm ents was revealed, however, by flocks of M arabout storks circling a thousand feet above, looking for refuse. D ifficult terrain in Palestine also hindered the discovery of raiding parties, who would hide under rocks until searching aircraft returned to refuel before resum ing their m ovem ent. Negative air reconnaissance reports were soon found unreliable, except from the m ost open areas of desert or plain.18 From the latter part of the nineteenth century, dense fighting form a­ tions becam e more and more vulnerable to m odem weapons. European infantry abandoned close order in favour of thick skirm ish lines, while the shock role of cavalry went into steep decline. The advent of the aeroplane prompted parallel developm ents in the im perial context. A single bomb accurately placed in the middle of a m ass of m en could inflict heavy losses, and insurgents soon learned that dispersal offered both concealm ent and protection. By 1928 Ikhwan raiders in Iraq had adopted loose form ations for m ovem ent and combat. Som e British observers therefore concluded that the raids were being 'led by m en who

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know som ething of m odem war', and this w as true in the sense that the development w as probably a response to earlier experience of aerial attack. These sm all, scattered parties were hard to find and defeat. The advantages of dispersal are indicated by the air force response. Instruc­ tions issued in Transjordan in August 1928 urged pilots to attack sw iftly and in force as soon as a suitable target had been found, ordered all aircraft to bomb at the sam e tim e before raiders could scatter, and discouraged the use of the forward m achine gun against dispersed targets in favour of the more selective fire of the m ovable rear gun. Indigenous reactions to the aeroplane were them selves able to force m odification to air force tactics.19 N atural cover not only offered concealm ent, it also provided protec­ tion. Shona rebels in 1897 took refuge in the caves of the M atopos hills, but imperial troops blockaded the exits, starved som e rebels into surrender and overcame others by hurling dynam ite into the cave m ouths.20 C aves were m uch less vulnerable to the bomber. As early as April 1923 the followers of Sheikh M ahm ud were using the caverns of Kurdistan as natural air-raid shelters. On the North West Frontier som e tribal sections, such as the Abdur Rahm an Khel, norm ally lived in caves, and thus did not even have to abandon their hom es to obtain im m unity from direct attack. Som e village dwelling sections, such as the Faridai and M aresai, possessed protective cave system s into which they and their cattle could retire when threatened by the air force. Som e of these caves were very large. In April 1930 a tribal lashkar in Jindai Khwar sheltered in one which accom m odated six hundred men, gave com plete protection from bombing, and supplied excellent fresh water from a spring in its bed. Other lashkars artificially improved these natural defences, built stone w alls across cave exits, and left loopholes through which m arksm en could fire at aircraft. It w as difficult to strike hard at these protected insurgents. One British observer concluded the lashkars had successfully 'adjusted their life to air attack'.21 Trenchard recog­ nized that these m ethods made air force operations far less effective, prevented direct attack on persons or property, and left prolonged blockade the only real hope of success. If sustained bombing could confine tribesm en to caves, discom fort and hunger m ight force them to surrender.22 Traditional man-made defences could also be turned to novel use. In the Yemen there were num erous strong stone towers and forts, known as d ais. Originally built to provide shelter and protection from the m usketry of local raiders, they later served as places of refuge from bombing. The air force soon found that d a is were resistant to attack. The sm aller towers were hard to detect from the air, and a well-placed bomb of at least 230 pounds w as needed to inflict decisive structural damage.

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The 20-pound Cooper bom bs were useless except as sighters. Larger forts were easier to find but more difficult to attack. The bom bs used by the air force in 1928 m ade no im pression on their stone walls; only a direct hit through the m ud roof of a large dar could cause any damage; but air force bombing w as too erratic to m ake this more than a remote possibility. It w as thought 500-pound bom bs were essential to shatter the m asonry of a large fort, but m unitions of this weight were not then available at Aden. The fort at D ala was especially strong. Built in 192021, it w as an im pressive stone structure, perched on a rocky and difficult hill, its large square keep encom passed by round towers and a curtain wall. During 1928 no less than eight tons of bom bs were dropped on this work, yet the w alls and towers remained undamaged. The sm all and fragile biplanes used to police the Empire could not easily destroy substantial stone fortifications.23 N ew forms of artificial protection also emerged. When faced by European arm ies using rifles and heavy artillery, the M aoris of N ew Zealand had turned their traditional style of fortification, the pa, into a m odem trench and bunker system,- in som e respects this w as a precursor of the m ethods used during the Great War, when European arm ies had responded to the murderous firepower of contemporary weapons by burrowing into the ground. In the 1920s Asian tribesm en reacted to an increasingly lethal Empire in sim ilar fashion. As early as 1921, M ahsud villagers sheltered from air attack in dug-outs they had excavated around their hom es; these defences made bombing ineffective. The civilizing m ission was continued with 6-inch howitzers which shelled the villages from tim e to time, and whenever m ovem ent was seen. Zeidi troops in the Yemen in the spring of 1928 also reacted to bombing by digging shelters, while grain stores in places bombed were either buried in the ground or removed to stone d ais. The Zeidi Iman refused a British ultim atum to evacuate D ala in June the sam e year. He prepared against the expected air attacks by ordering dug-outs to be built near all m ajor towns as far north as Sana, and hoped that sustained bombing could be endured if the inhabitants and treasure of exposed urban centres were removed to shelter. Air raids, directed at frontier garrisons and Yemeni towns, opened at the end of June and went on for two m onths. The con­ struction of dug-outs was accelerated once bombing had begun, and the policy of evacuation avoided heavy casualties, but only at the cost of m uch discom fort and lowered m orale.24 Air force tactics were again modified in response to these new tribal methods. On the North West Frontier in 1930, efforts were made to exploit surprise. British bombers employed gliding attacks or approached their targets by night in a shallow dive, with the engine throttled back. By reducing noise in this way aircraft som etim es arrived undetected,

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and caught the tribesm en before they had tim e to take cover.25 Tribesm en were, however, reluctant to allow the air force the advan­ tage of surprise. The success of passive m easures of defence depends to a large extent upon sufficient warning of attack. In Britain a com plex system of observers w as set up by 1918 to alert the London defences to impending air raids, and tribal peoples protected their hom es in related, if less elaborate, manner. 'N orm ally after the first attack a service of hilltop watchers w ill be organized by day', remarked Indian Air Head­ quarters in October 1923. The air force on the Frontier had tried to achieve surprise by suddenly sw itching attacks from one village to another, since unexpected raids were more likely to find concentrated or unprotected targets. The warning system made this policy unproduc­ tive, unless long intervals between attacks had m ade the watchers careless. Philip G am e (the AOC India) grumbled that warnings allowed early evacuation of villages, and 'the bombing of em pty valleys by large concentrations of aircraft w ill merely tend to bring bombing into ridicule'. The m ountainous country of Kurdistan enabled tribesm en to use sm oke signal alarm s which reduced casualties to personnel. Warn­ ing bonfires were also employed on the Frontier in N ovem ber 1928 by the Giga and N ekzan Khel, who not only left their villages to take cover during attacks, but also returned to their hom es in the intervals between raids to put out any fires that had been started. Although aircraft dram atically increased the speed with which dissidents could be at­ tacked, they could not alw ays ensure that such attacks achieved sur­ prise.26 Effective cooperation between air and ground forces depends upon efficient com m unication. During the interwar period this was usually provided by visual signals, often in the form of large strips of white cloth, visible from the air, which were laid out on the ground in prearranged patterns. Aircrew would read these coded signs and take appropriate supporting action. During operations against Zeidi troops in the Aden Protectorate in 1925, Audali tribal auxiliaries were provided with cloth ground strips. When they occupied enemy territory they arranged these on the ground to instruct the air force to cease bombing in that area. Zeidi troops m anaged to capture som e of the cloths, and soon deduced their purpose. A successful Zeidi counter attack in October was helped by judiciously deployed com m ands to stop bombing, which threw the air force into temporary confusion. T h is effective ruse seem s to have been employed only once.27

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Resistance The last m ajor category of response has been labelled 'resistance'. Adaptation w as defined as those passive m easures intended to reduce the destructive effects of air attack. Resistance differs by being active rather than passive. A s employed in this chapter, the term resistance includes all violent retaliation intended to inflict loss, damage or injury to air force personnel and property. For the m ost part resistance w as conducted w ith rifles and w as directed at aircraft flying on operational m issions, and the weight of the discussion reflects the predominance of rifle fire as a form of retaliation. Resistance could, however, be con­ ducted in various other ways. A t its m ost prim itive it m ight involve throwing stones at passing aeroplanes. There were other, more devel­ oped forms: airbases, fuel depots and stranded aircraft were all vulner­ able to attack; aircrew som etim es fell into tribal hands and could be killed or their lives used as bargaining counters; efforts were made to acquire specialized anti-aircraft weapons; and occasionally indigenous air forces were established. These form s of retaliation are discussed in turn. The aircraft employed on policing operations were extrem ely vulner­ able. N one of the aeroplanes used ever carried armour, although it was occasionally suggested that they should do so.28 There w as therefore no obstacle to prevent an accurate bullet from penetrating to the vitals of the machine. There were several parts of an aircraft which could not be hit without the m achine being disabled. A bullet hole in the m ain petrol tank, or a fracture of the fuel feed pipes would result in loss of petrol and cause the aircraft to descend prematurely while a puncture in the radiator of a water-cooled engine would have a sim ilar effect. Vital control wires m ight be severed by a stray bullet, w ith possibly fatal results. Aircraft were rarely destroyed by rifle fire alone. Nevertheless, a forced landing m ight keep a m achine out of com m ission for several days as spare parts were made available and emergency repairs under­ taken. In rugged or m outainous country a forced landing m ight cause irreparable damage to an aircraft and serious injury to its crew. Above all, the pilot w as com pletely unprotected. An incident from the 1930s, recorded by David Lee, illustrates this vulnerability. Along the edge of the airfield at M iram shah ran a road, frequented by local Indian traffic. On one occasion a Westland Wapiti, piloted by Flying Officer Arnold Wall, w as approaching to land over the road when an Indian boy threw a stone at it. By som e rare chance the stone m issed all the intervening struts, wires and wings, and struck the pilot in the eye. D espite intense pain he m anaged to land the m achine safely, but the

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sight of his eye could not be saved, and the injury ended his flying career. There are several other exam ples of stones being thrown at low-flying aircraft, although none had such dram atic results as in this particular case. However ineffective stone throwing m ay norm ally have been, pilots were very exposed to rifle fire. Some m achines had emergency controls which gave the air gunner a sm all chance of survival if his pilot w as disabled. A s one aircraft attacked a M ohmand lashkar in M ay 1930, for example, a bullet struck the pilot in the neck, killing him alm ost im m ediately. The gunner regained control of the aircraft, and flew it back to Risalpur; but he crashed on landing and sustained injuries from which he died that night. Norm ally, if a pilot w as killed or seriously wounded a destructive crash w as the result.29 The European m ilitary lead over their A sian opponents depended on continuous technical innovation, because new weapons soon found their way into tribal hands. Extensive m ilitary operations in the M iddle East during the Great War had brought large quantities of m odem arm s into the region, and from 1919 m any of these were turned against im perial forces. During the Iraq rebellion of 1920, for instance, the British estim ated that over 131,000 arm ed rebels took the field. Of these, nearly 17,000 had m odem small-bore m agazine repeaters and more than 43,000 had 'old but serviceable rifles', usually dating from the late nineteenth century. British concern at the quality of tribal arm am ent is reflected in the decision to fine the defeated insurgents in guns and am m unition: by 4 February 1921 more than 63,000 rifles and nearly three m illion rounds had been collected. Palestinian guerrillas were less well equipped; but large quantities of m odem arm s made imperial operations on the North West Frontier m uch more costly from the turn of the century. Effective firearm s had also penetrated to the Southern Sudan, and in Decem ber 1927 about half of G w ek's N uer adherents were thought to possess rifles. These weapons were often handled with ability. Basil Embry paid im pressive tribute to the m arksm anship, tactical skill and eye for terrain shown by the Frontier tribesmen, qualities also dem onstrated by Sheikh M ahm ud's Kurdish followers. The Palestinian insurgents in 1936 dem onstrated sound tactical sense and brought down several aircraft, despite their poor arm am ent.30 British aeroplanes on policing m issions were frequently damaged and occasionally destroyed by intense and accurate rifle fire from the ground. Operational reports provide extensive details of air force losses, allow ing patterns of insurgent success and failure to be discerned. The operations carried out at Bala in Palestine in 1936 give som e im pression of the scale of resistance at its m ost fierce. On the morning of 3 Septem ber a piquet of the 2/Lincolns w as attacked by rebels; calls for air assistan ce were soon received, and arm oured veh icles were also

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despatched in support. D uring the day the air force flew fourteen sorties to cover the successful attack and occupation of Bala. One aircraft was hit early on, both its occupants dying in the subsequent crash; the Officer Com m anding 6 Squadron w as twice wounded; and three other aircraft were damaged by rifle fire. Resistance w as m ost sustained and successful during the M esopotam ia rising of 1920. Between July and September eight m achines were lost over rebel territory, a further fortytwo so badly shot up they had to be dism antled and rebuilt in the aircraft park while the m aintenance of four squadrons in the field w as severely hampered by the large number of aircraft damaged by bullets. Intense rifle fire w as also encountered during the Kabul airlift of December 1928 and in m ost low-altitude operations over Yemen and the North West Frontier. C asualties were inflicted m uch less often by the tribesm en of the Aden Protectorate and the Sudan; but Akhwan raiders developed the habit of shooting at aircraft on sight and occasionally brought them down. The ability of tribal m arksm en to damage and destroy policing aeroplanes w as sim ply not foreseen.31 Indigenous retaliation could not prevent, but could impede, air force operations, and im perial tactics had to be m odified to reduce the risk of loss. In Transjordan pilots were instructed to avoid flying a steady course at low altitudes. In Iraq in the early 1920s it w as found that firing with the front gun during a diving attack and with the rear gun im m ediately the bom bs had been released forced the tribesm en to take cover and greatly reduced the volum e of return fire. During the Arab Revolt in Palestine m any attacks in support of the army had to be delivered at low level. Pilots were instructed to fly at high speed if below 500 feet over rebel territory, and to bomb sw iftly to reduce the chance of effective reply. The tendency of guerrillas to fire at any aeroplane w ithin reach could be exploited by the air force as a m eans of intelligence, aircraft som etim es being despatched over suspected rebel hideouts to draw insurgent fire and thus discover their positions. The m ost typical air force response to ground fire, however, was sim ply to gain height. Aircraft raiding the Yemeni town of Kataba in February and M arch 1928 initially flew at three or four hundred feet, but after several m achines were hit by bullets a height of two or three thousand feet w as m ain­ tained. In the Sudan in Decem ber 1927 pilots were told never to fly below 500 feet, and to clim b above 1,000 feet if they were visibly fired at. M arksm en on the North West Frontier drove aircraft m uch higher. The villages of the G iga and N ekzan Khel, bombed in Novem ber 1928, lay in m ountains about 8,000 feet above sea level, and to avoid sharp­ shooters on the neighbouring hillsides the aeroplanes flew 4,000 feet above their targets, but even this did not take them over the highest peaks of the region. During the W aziristan operations of 1925 the

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bombers were stripped of their m achine guns to save weight, and to remove all tem ptation to attack below the ordered height. These various air force tactics, developed in response to indigenous retaliation, bear w itness to the im pact of resistance.32 Bombing w as naturally m uch less accurate at these higher altitudes but this disadvantage w as held to be outweighed by the lower risk from fire, as tribesm en were undoubtedly enouraged by air force losses. T h e M ahsuds considered it a feather in their cap if they brought down an aeroplane' observed Major-General M atheson in July 1922. The air force w as well aware of this psychological dimension, and there are frequent references to tribal m orale in orders instructing pilots to gain height. If an aircraft crashed in tribal territory its m achine guns could be removed, providing they were not badly damaged, and added to the local armoury. Conversely, tribesm en seem to have become dem oralized when aero­ planes attacked at heights above the effective reach of rifle fire, Zeidi soldiers appearing to have reacted in this way in 1928.33 It is difficult to estim ate how the risks of enem y action were perceived by RAF aircrew. The evidence is slight and often contradictory,- and an elem ent of bravado m ay have crept into som e of the m em oirs. Pilot Officer Carr, who flew with 55 Squadron in Iraq, recalls feeling a sense of vulnerability from ground fire while on active operations in Kurdis­ tan. T his was doubtless encouraged by a series of m issions he flew in the Quara Dagh valley on 19 March 1931. A t the end of the day he counted seventy five bullet holes in his aircraft, including one in the parachute pack on which he had been sitting. The m achine w as sent for a refit to Hinaidi, where the engine, tailplane and fabric covering all had to be replaced. David Lee occasionally worrried that he presented an excellent target to any tribesm an who cared to fire at him: T h e Wazirs regarded sniping at troops or aeroplanes m uch as we regarded grouse shooting except that they observed no close season.' Basil Embry, by way of contrast, found active operations in Iraq and India to be exciting and 'fun'. Such risks as he perceived resulted from the unreliability of his aircraft and the ruggedness of the terrain, rather than tribal retaliation. Undoubtedly more aircraft were lost and more aircrew killed as a result of accident than from enemy action, which would seem to bear out Em bry's view of the hazards. Perceptions of risk, however, do not always accurately reflect the statistical dangers. Am erican bomber crews flying over Germ any in 1943-45 feared flak far more than fighters, even though it was known that fighters were more deadly. The defensive machine guns of the bomber allowed at least the illusion of being able to reply to enem y aircraft, while anti-aircraft artillery allow ed no opportunity for com forting retaliation.34 Aircraft were often forced to land in hostile territory, either as a result

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of enemy action or of m echanical failure. If the aircrew survived they m ight be captured and the possession of these prisoners offered subject peoples an opportunity for retaliation. Captured aircrew could be killed outright, or the threat of death or torture used to extract concessions from the imperial authorities. During the Iraq rebellion of 1920 an aircraft attem pting to drop supplies to the stranded gunboat G re e n fly was shot down into the river. The crew sw am safely to the shore but were later killed by the rebels. In February 1928, Wahabi raiders brought down an aeroplane in the Iraqi desert, and shot the pilot, Flying Officer Jackson, after he had set fire to his stranded machine. Sheikh M ahm ud of Kurdistan captured two British aircrew in the sum m er of 1926, took them across the Persian border, and attem pted to gain concessions as the price of their release. The prisoners were treated well and when they becam e ill after sharing the rough living conditions of the tribesmen, M ahm ud perm itted the visit of a British M edical Officer. Eventually they were released unharmed after alm ost four m onths in captivity. The fear of being taken prisoner and later m utilated undoubtedly troubled som e flyers, and their anxieties are reflected in m em oirs and squadron songs, but these fears seem to have resulted largely from m yth and exaggerated rumour. In the six years 1925-30 no aircrew were killed by tribesm en after forced landings on the North West Frontier. Indeed, tribesm en often displayed remarkably little anim osity towards air force personnel. Tow ards the end of his operational tour on the Frontier, David Lee asked one Pathan tribesman, H ukm ud Khan, how he passed the tim e in his village. When the m an replied that he shot at aeroplanes, Lee was understandably 'a bit taken aback' by his response, since H ukm ud Khan had served as his bearer for the past four years, and the two men had become friends. Aircrew taken prisoner were usually treated with consideration, unless captured by the notoriously cruel W ahabis.35 Nevertheless, the air force authorities were reluctant to allow the capture of aircrew to hinder policing operations and efforts were made to reduce the risk of personnel being taken prisoner. During the Waziristan operations of 1925, pilots were instructed to ensure they remained above effective rifle range, which elim inated the risk of being brought down by hostile fire and gave pilots the chance, in the event of engine failure, to glide to an emergency landing ground in friendly territory. If an aeroplane were forced to land, it w as occasionally possible to rescue the crew, before they were captured. T h is was especially desirable when fighting the Wahabis. During the sum m er of 1928, som e generalpurpose m achines in Transjordan were flown as single seaters, armed with a rifle and one hundred rounds. If a bomber were forced to descend, these aircraft were to land nearby and pick up the stranded crew

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(provided the ground w as sufficiently firm and level to allow this to be done safely) while other aeroplanes offered covering m achine gun fire. T h is method could, of course, only be used in open desert areas, and w as im possible in the m ountainous regions of Kurdistan or the Frontier. During operations in the Sudan in February 1929, air gunners carried a revolver and twenty rounds to defend them selves from hostile N uer in the event of a forced landing. O ccasionally surrender could not be avoided; but its harm ful im pact could be softened by following the appropriate form. Once it w as clear that a forced landing in hostile territory impended, the bolt and m oving parts of the Lew is gun were thrown overboard, to render it a useless prize. Once on the ground, the m achine w as to be set alight by firing a bullet or signal flare into the petrol tank. Several devoted aircrew were badly burned attem pting to put these hazardous instructions into practice. Then, if there were no chance of escape, 'it w ill be w isest to surrender with as good a grace as possible and a bold demeanour, and preferably to the older and more important-looking m en in the crowd; the younger elem ent is more liable to be hot-headed and unpleasant'. Stranded aircrew were advised not to put up a fight against Frontier tribesmen, as this w ould m erely antago­ nize their captors.36 The loss of prisoners presented the air force w ith a difficult problem. If bombing were continued there w as a risk that the captives m ight be killed in reprisal, which w as very bad for air force morale, but if bombing were suspended to allow the opening of negotiations, the air raids m ight fail in their political and m ilitary objectives. Operations on the Frontier well illustrate these perplexities. In April 1922, aircraft were concen­ trated at Dardoni, and prepared for operations against dissident parties of Ahmadzai near D atta Khel. Bombing w as not carried out, as the N aib Tahsildar of M iram shah w as a hostage in tribal hands. Early the follow ing year, the capture of crews in W aziristan brought air raids to a halt. Tw o men in the Dera T oi were only released after tribesm en secured a guarantee that their hom es and property would be spared from destruction. A crew in Jalal Khel w as exchanged for tribal 'crim inals' held by the British; but the pause in operations that this entailed resulted in their failure. Philip Gam e, com m anding the air force in India, w as dism ayed by this bargaining, urged an end to negotiations, and suggested that the safety of prisoners be secured by threat of reprisal if they were harmed. He w as aware this would be unpopular w ith aircrew, but did not think that such personal considerations would affect the air force in action: 'Pilots were not deterred in France by the ever existent possibil­ ity of being shot down in flam es.' A reward of 5,000 Rs w as usually offered for the good treatm ent of captives, although the authorities were careful to 'guard against attem pts to raise the price'. Aircrew norm ally

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carried leaflets in the local vernaculars, advertising the reward for their return, and threatening reprisal if they were harmed. From the type of m utilation m ost widely practised, or at least m ost widely feared, these docum ents became colloquially known as 'ghooly chits'.37 Both aircraft and aircrew were at their m ost vulnerable on the ground. The range of m any single-engined biplanes was short, forward airfields were often close to hostile territory, ground forces in the regions under air control were extrem ely sketchy, and bases were vulnerable to sudden raids. In the event of a major rising, airfield security w as an im m ediate British concern, as in the Iraq rebellion of 1920, when Baghdad air base w as subject to occasional sniping. In the cam paigns against the Wahabis in south western Iraq, advanced landing grounds were established deep in the desert; and the fear of Ikhwan raids prompted careful defensive m easures. Every evening extensive sweeps were carried out by aircraft and armoured cars up to the distance raiders could cover before dawn. At sunset all units, except armoured car patrols, were withdrawn to laagers for the night. Further reconnaissance began at sunrise. If the neighbour­ ing tribes were considered unreliable, the cam p was m oved every day to avoid surprise attack. On the North West Frontier the location of airfields was also influenced by the prospect of raids, Tank and Bannu being selected as suitable sites partly because they were easy to protect. After dacoit attacks in the Dardoni plain, the forward airfield was withdrawn to the greater security of M iram shah, a large m ud fort which served as the headquarters of the Tochi Scouts. In the 1930s the aircraft m aintained there (a detached flight from Kohat) were wheeled inside the fort every night. At dark all gates were closed, the fort w as protected by Tochi sentries in crenellated towers at each comer, and the w alls were swept by floodlights to detect intruders. The formation of local levies under air force control w as partly inspired by the need to protect Middle Eastern airfields. These extensive m easures of defence indicate a perva­ sive fear of tribal retaliation against the bases which supplied, fuelled and m aintained the bombers.38 During the conquest of Africa, the lethal effect of European weapons prompted som e indigenous societies to im itate their tormentors. Smooth­ bore m uskets had long been used in Africa, but the technical advances of the late nineteenth century made such firearm s increasingly obsolete. In 1890 the European powers formally banned the export of m odem arm s to Africa,- but such weapons still found their way into African hands through capture, illicit trade or dom estic production. The Am akiri faction in the state of New Calabar used a G atling gun in the civil war of 1879-82, and ten years later m ost Ijebu soldiers in Nigeria had firearms, m any of which were Snider breechloaders. It was, however, Sam ori Ture who m ade m ost effort to study, understand and exploit the

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m ilitary developm ents of the late nineteenth century. He acquired C hassepot rifles, but their cardboard cartridges soon rotted in the tropical hum idity. The Kropatschek repeater, with à light m etal car­ tridge, was first used in the Sudan by the French in 1885, and within sixteen m onths Sam ori had also acquired sm all numbers of these weapons, known locally as data, or 'ten m ouths'. Rearmam ent began in earnest in 1891 and by Novem ber of that year Sam ori had at least 2,000 repeaters, a number which later rose to between three and six thousand. Local sm iths m ade an effective copy of the Kropatschek, with poor rifling and sights but a workable breech m echanism . D om estic industry produced twelve guns per week and about three or four hundred cartidges a day: cases and bullets were also collected after each battle. M enelik U, Emperor of Ethiopia, also made strenuous attem pts to acquire m odem weapons, and his efforts were am ply rewarded when the light H otchkiss m achine guns of the Ethiopian Army played a m ajor part in the Italian defeat at Adwa in M arch 1896. The appearance of the aero­ plane occasioned analagous efforts to obtain the latest instrum ents of war.39 The m ost obvious weapon to counter the bomber is the anti-aircraft gun. The Air Staff m ay have doubted its usefulness; but the Iman of Yemen, less tram elled by tactical dogma, sought to acquire specialized artillery to m eet the menace of air power at Aden. By the sum m er of 1928, sm all guns had been installed at the forts of Kataba, T aiz and M afalis. When air raids began in June that year, these eight weapons were very active, but they appear to have been less effective than rifles. W ithout adequate sighting instrum ents they were unable to shoot with sufficient accuracy to pose m uch threat to the air force.40 The Iman also tried to obtain aeroplanes; but these proved no more lethal than his artillery. The Italians provided him with several aircraft 'of doubtful performance' of which four were still intact by October 1926. The Air Staff considered it 'extrem ely unlikely' that they would ever pose a threat to the Aden Protectorate, as no Yem enis had yet been trained to fly, and it w as not feared that Italian pilots would risk their lives in m ilitary operations for the Iman. By March 1927 there were no more than two or three old aircraft in Yemen, and the Iman w as growing dissatisfied with the Italian failure to supply him more m odem arms. A report in a Cairo newspaper, in January 1928, that a Yemeni aircraft had flown over the Aden Protectorate in protest at the British presence, w as entirely false. Ibn Saud repeatedly protested that air attacks on his tribesm en were 'inhum an'. When this failed to move the British, he attem pted to obtain aeroplanes him self, for internal and external secu­ rity. The British supplied four Westland Wapitis, to discourage Ibn Saud from looking elsewhere; to keep the supply of spare parts under British

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control; and because it w as unlikely the aircraft would be of any use. By March 1927 he had six m achines, but no pilots and no organization for their m aintenance. The attem pts of these sm all and impoverished states to obtain effective air power were alm ost bound to fail. The local popu­ lation lacked the necessary m echanical skills,- and problem s of supply and repair proved insoluble.41 Afghanistan w as more favourably placed to develop an air force. Afghan cities had been bombed by the British in M ay 1919 and this display of strength by the new weapons of the Empire w as a m ajor stim ulus to the growth of indigenous aviation. Afghanistan w as a large and inaccessible country which buffered the Soviet and the British Empires, enabling Afghan diplom ats to exploit the rivalries between the powers to obtain aeroplanes from both. The air force was formed in 1924 as an independent service under the M inister of War. Earlier in the decade, three Afghans had been sent to Italy to train as pilot, observer and m echanic respectively. Ghund M ishar M uham m ed Ihsan Khan w as appointed Chief of the Air Force, despite his apparent incompetence as a pilot, for he w as the only Afghan who could fly. In August, shortly after the Khost rebellion, two Bristol Fighters were supplied by Britain to Kabul. Requests for more aircraft, pilots and training were refused, which left the field open to the R ussians and by the end of 1925 the air force was alm ost entirely under Soviet control. Afghanistan lacked the technical resources to support aviation alone; the country was too m ountainous to m ake a good training ground; and civil aviation was not com m ercially profitable. The m ain function of the air force at this tim e w as to carry the royal m ail when the Am ir w as on tour. Further batches of Afghan students were sent to train in M oscow, and at the Cadet College of the Regia Aeronautica in Italy. The reforming Amir, Amanulla, w as an enthusiastic supporter of aviation,- but his modernizing policies provoked tribal reaction, and at the end of 1928 there were serious disturbances in eastern Afghanistan, led by m ullahs who de­ clared the A m ir's reforms contrary to the spirit of Islam . Afghan aircraft, crewed by Russians, bombed the rebellious areas; but these operations produced 'the sam e result as a stick thrust into a w asp's nest', provoked further armed resistance, and only hastened A m anulla's downfall.42 The development of the Afghan Air Force continued, despite the overthrow of Am anulla, Russian influence declining as Afghans com ­ pleted their training and the British supplied aircraft more readily. In 1937 eight Hawker Hind light bombers were bought from Britain, their performance proving so satisfactory that an order for twenty more w as placed two years later. Aircraft were also obtained from Italy, twentyfour fighter, reconnaissance and training m achines being supplied in 1937. The chief want of the Afghan Air Force was, however, not aircraft

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but skilled tradesmen, a need which had to be supplied from elsewhere, as Afghanistan lacked industrial development. In January 1938 British and Italian instructors, engineers and m echanics arrived at Kabul to supervise the assem bly of new aircraft and the training of their crews. In M ay the following year a British officer w as seconded to the Afghan Air Force for three years as a flying instructor. By this tim e aviation in Afghanistan had achieved operational efficiency; and two squadrons of Hawker Hinds helped ground forces to crush rebellion in Katawaz and Zam indar.43 The birth of the Afghan Air Force under Soviet influence w as closely watched by the British. The North West Frontier w as the m ost sensitive border of the Empire, and the growth of m ilitary aviation beyond the m ountain passes caused concern in Britain and India alike. Upon the form ation of the Afghan Air Force, Trenchard advised that Afghanistan be supplied, by gift or sale, with British aircraft, as this would allow the Empire to influence m ilitary developm ents in that country. In March 1925 the Air Staff warned that the six squadrons in India m ight have to be increased, were the Afghan Air Force to become efficient. Other im perial observers initially doubted that Afghanistan, a poor and back­ ward state, would prove fruitful soil for the growth of air power. In Decem ber 1925, Sir Francis Hum phries (the British M inister at Kabul) considered that aviation in Afghanistan could never be effective; that no British action w as necessary; and that, w ithout Russian help, the 'Afghan m ilitary air force w ill die a natural and unlam ented death'. He advised only an informal warning to the Am ir that Russian air bases near the Indian frontier could not be tolerated. He w as supported by the Indian government, who cam e out strongly against any aerial assistance to Afghanistan. T h is com placency did not last long. By October 1926 the government of India acknowledged that the Afghan Air Force had become efficient, an outcom e thay had hitherto thought 'inconceiv­ able'; and the following m onth the C om m ittee of Imperial Defence concluded that the air forces in India were 'dangerously sm all'. By February 1927 Hum phries had reversed his earlier view s about the im possibility of training Afghans, and suggested that Russian personnel could soon be replaced. It w as against this background that the British government finally decided to supply light bombers to Afghanistan. The ability of that state to m aintain a sm all but efficient air force had been greatly underestim ated, the emergence of effective air power beyond the Frontier w as an unpleasant shock to the Indian government, and the decision to provide aircraft for the Am ir w as a belated attem pt to influence an unwelcome development which could no longer be averted. Tow ards the end of the 1930s the British squadrons in India were reinforced, in part to m eet the threat posed by Afghan air power.44

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Different societies reacted to British air power in different ways. The geographical environment, political institutions and the econom ic development of a given society can be correlated against the varieties of response to illustrate this point. Ikhwan raiders, who lived as nom ads in the open desert, tended to rely on dispersal rather than concealm ent for protection. The N uer of the Southern Sudan either tried to blend into the landscape, or scattered am ong inaccessible swam plands, when threat­ ened by bombing. The shelter of caves could be exploited only in m oun­ tainous areas, and it was in such regions, especially Yemen, Kurdistan and the Frontier, that the construction of dug-outs was also m ost prevelent. Acephalous societies were able to endure more prolonged air bombardment than those in which political institutions were central­ ized, since diffuse system s of authority offered fewer obvious targets for air force attack, and were less able to enforce capitulation upon the more stubborn m em bers of their own com m unity. In such cases air force action had to personally affect large numbers of individuals before the subm ission of tribal leaders could be effectively im posed upon their followers. Those societies which possessed towns and a state were more vulnerable to air attack but, in som e ways, better able to retaliate, than those which did not. Institutions of government in urban areas pre­ sented the air force with targets that were easy to find and attack; the defeats of the Am ir of Afghanistan in 1919, and the Iman of Yemen in 1928, followed the bombardment of their capital cities, Kabul and Sana. The existence of a state, however, allowed the purchase of anti-aircraft artillery and even of defensive aeroplanes.45

Conclusion The supporters of air policing generally believed that air power would prove decisive against peoples who possessed no aircraft. The Air Staff argued that the panic produced by initial contact with aeroplanes would first give way to indifference, before morale finally collapsed as bombing continually disrupted everyday life. Panic w as often the first reaction, both to aircraft in general and to bombing in particular. The Sudanese N uer sacrificed bulls to ward off the unfam iliar evil before abandoning their villages: other peoples did not pause to placate the gods before fleeing for their lives. Initial fears were, however, short-lived. D espite Air M inistry assertions to the contrary, tribal societies were able to adapt to this new form of state power. Fam iliaritiy with the effect of air action gradually dim inished its terrors. A wide range of tactical adapta­ tions were evolved. Tribal forces learned to take advantage of darkness,to move in dispersed form ations; and to find concealm ent in the

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landscape. The num erous caves of the North West Frontier were employed as natural shelters from bombardment; where no such natural shelter existed, Zeidi ingenuity w as able to supply the deficiency. H illtop watchers and fire beacons deprived the bomber of surprise. These m easures indicate a growing m ental adjustm ent to bombing and did m uch to lessen its m aterial effects. Violent resistance w as also possible. Thousands of m odem rifles had reached A sian hands by the 1920s and biplanes proved vulnerable to their accurate fire. British prisoners were subject to occasional reprisals or were exploited as political bargaining counters. Varieties of resistance can be correlated against the political and econom ic development of resisting societies. States on the fringes of Empire could attem pt to acquire aeroplanes for them selves, although poverty and a lack of m echanical skills ensured that efforts to create indigenous air forces usually produced only feeble results. In Afghanistan, however, a sm all but efficient m ilitary air service was successfully created. The British were forced to respond to these developments. N ew tactical m ethods were evolved to defeat adap­ tation and m inim ize the effects of resistance. Although the British them selves introduced aircraft to the Empire, this development w as merely one aspect of an interactive relationship between im perial m ilitary power and its opponents. A study of indigenous responses reveals that the British were not the only innovators.

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C H A P T E R SEV EN

The technical dimension

There's an old-fashioned Bristol With old-fashioned planes With a fabric all tattered and tom An old-fashioned engine that starts with a roar And a sound like a thousand tin cans Tho' she won't loop or spin 'Cos she's nearly done in Still there's something that makes her divine For she's quite safe and sound 'Cos she won't leave the ground Will that old-fashioned Bristol of mine. Song, 28 Squadron, India D espite the paucity of relevant scholarship, or perhaps because of it, historians have expressed clear and unanim ous views about the techni­ cal dim ension of air policing. Imperial 'lim ited war', it is generally agreed, encouraged the ineffective com bination of prim itive techniques with am bitious doctrine. M aurice Dean has been m ost outspoken, claim ing that the quality of air force equipm ent 'steadily deteriorated' - one presum es in a relative rather than absolute sense - until by 1929 it was 'abysm al', a decline he attributes in part to the irrelevance of police bombing to the demands of European warfare. The policing work of the 1920s, according to M al­ colm Smith, 'required equipm ent which would be of no use at all in a European emergency' since the general-purpose types developed for the imperial context were inevitably 'a com prom ise between a number of different operational requirem ents'. Sim ilar reasoning has been fol­ lowed by David Killingray. Anthony Clayton considers that the policing role inspired the disastrous belief that the unescorted day bomber would 'alw ays get through', and encouraged the neglect of navigational and bombing equipment, which so badly affected the air force when it went

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to war in 1939.1 A ll these argum ents are advanced w ithout extensive docum entary support, which is not to suggest that they are therefore wrong, but merely to note that they should be treated as tentative hypotheses rather than substantiated conclusions. T his section fills out the picture. It exam ines som e aspects of the doctrine and equipm ent of the air force in relation to the geographical, strategic and tactical context of air policing.

Air strategy The distances between the various theatres of policing operations raised the problem of air com m unication between them. If the air forces in Egypt, Palestine, Iraq and India could not cross the m iles of desert or inhospitable coastline which separated them, then the establishm ents in each country would have to be accordingly increased. A system of air routes between com m ands would allow m utual reinforcement in case of emergency without the delays involved in transfer by sea; this would m ultiply the effective power of the im perial air forces w ithout increas­ ing the number of their squadrons. A grandiose schem e for a railway between Cairo and the Cape had long been a favoured im perialist pipedream. It began to be fulfilled in technically modified form when an air route the length of Africa w as surveyed in N ovem ber 1918. The first attem pt to fly the distance failed in February 1920, but the route w as later successfully covered by several pioneers. Plans for a regular air m ail service from Cairo to Baghdad, via Jerusalem and Amman, were drawn up by Trenchard and Churchill in 1919; and at the Cairo Conference in M arch 1921, Churchill advocated 'a far-sighted policy of imperial aerial development', in which a route from Cairo to Karachi, opened up by the air force, would later be flown as a regular civilian service. Henry Wilson (the CIGS) w as also enthusiastic about an im perial air network, as this would allow senior officers rapidly to inspect m ilitary units wherever they were stationed. The Cabinet sanctioned the route between Cairo and Baghdad in April 1921. Lord Curzon (the Foreign Secretary) re­ m ained sceptical, because he did not trust the agreements with the desert tribes, who had prom ised not to m olest the airfields and supplies.2 Preparations for the selection and m arking of landing grounds across the Syrian D esert between Am m an and Ram adi (on the Euphrates) had been m ade in March 1921, and in May, after aerial reconnaissance had ascertained the nature of the country, a Ford car convoy, supplied by air, was sent out to begin work. The progress made by June had firm ly established the Cairo to Baghdad route for m ilitary purposes, and the regular air m ail service, begun in August, w as opened to the public by October. Large stores of fuel were built up at the desert airfields.

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Between February and October 1922 eighty-six m achines m ade the journey, carrying 120 passengers and nearly four tons of m ail. Although the route w as regularly flown it still badly strained the m achines, which quickly became unreliable when separated from their squadron work­ shops for a long time. D ouglas Evill com m anded 70 Squadron while it worked the air m ail route, and his diary letters for 1923 tell of its constant hazards - storm s, w ater and oil leaks, breakdowns, vibrations, punctures, unskilled m echanics and crash landings. The system of air routes w as extended in the later 1920s: by October 1926 the section from Basra to Karachi w as in service, although not yet as an all-weather route, that from Karachi to C alcutta was in operation but required further work, and the need for an extension to Singapore had been recognised. Yearly return flights between Cairo and the Cape became part of the training routine of the RAF in Egypt, and by the 1930s flights between India and Singapore were regularly undertaken. The Aden Protectorate w as linked to the wider schem e of imperial strategy at the sam e tim e.3 The chief strategic function of the air route w as to m ove reinforce­ m ents between various theatres and hence to avoid expensive duplica­ tion. From the outset Trenchard im agined a single imperial air force, distributed like the navy in a number of fleets according to an overall plan, and linked by reliable air com m unications. U nits in each theatre would no longer need to be entirely self-sufficient, because striking air forces, concentrated in a few centres, could be rapidly moved as rein­ forcements. For this reason - am ong m any others - Trenchard strictly opposed a retreat from Iraq in the early 1920s, as this would m ean the loss of one vital link in the projected chain of air bases from the Cape to Singapore. The Cardwell system required that British battalions at hom e and in India be organized on a sim ilar basis: the Trenchard system of imperial defence likew ise required overseas squadrons to be inter­ changeable. Trenchard opposed a suggested increased in the Indian squadrons from twelve to eighteen aircraft partly because this would sacrifice the uniform ity which w as of such strategic value.4 The distribution of the im perial landplane squadrons eventually neared the Trenchard ideal of a few concentrated striking forces. In October 1926 there were eight squadrons in Iraq and six in India - the m ain centres of air activity - three squadrons were based in Egypt and these provided detachm ents when needed for Aden and the Sudan, while a further squadron covered the entire Palestine Mandate, including Transjordan. In later years the units in Aden and the Sudan were increased to a squadron each. A gradual shift eastwards also took place, as the squadrons in Iraq were reduced, those in India were increased, and the air route was extended to Singapore. Emergency air reinforcements were several tim es transferred along the air routes, m ost notably to Aden

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during the Abyssinian crisis and to Palestine during the Arab Revolt.5 It is a curious paradox that individual aircraft in the 1920s were the fastest type of weapon, but air units were am ong the least m obile of m ilitary forces. The bulk of a squadron consisted of the ground person­ nel responsible for m aintenance and adm inistration, along with cum ­ bersome stores which could not be m oved w ithout elaborate prepara­ tion. The fighting aircraft of a unit could only be flown to a new destination if there were enough landing grounds on the way; if not, then even the aeroplanes would have to be packed into cases and sent by sea. The transport of a unit by sea w as a slow and difficult process because the average squadron was encumbered by nearly four dozen vehicles and eight hundred shipping tons of other m aterial. Only vessels with the very largest hatches could take aeroplane cases, whose stowage on deck was precluded by the delicate nature of their contents. Skill and tim e were needed to dism antle aircraft before departure and to reassem ble them on arrival; the shortage of shipping im posed further delays. It w as estim ated in 1920 that between six and nine m onths m ust elapse before a squadron could be in action in M esopotam ia once its despatch from England had been ordered. The development of the air route overcame m ost of these delays. Aeroplanes and their crews flew along the chain of air bases, essential stores were quickly m oved by heavy transport aircraft, and the squadron could soon be in action again while the rem aining m aterial followed in lorries or by sea. The air route greatly increased the lim ited strategic m obility of the air force.6 One suggested solution to the problem of unit m obility w as to em ploy large airships as aeroplane carriers. In the early 1920s it w as not yet clear that the aeroplane would in the end replace the airship for alm ost all purposes, and Trenchard at first thought that dirigibles m ight perform policing functions. The large rigid airship enjoyed several m ilitary advantages over the aeroplane, especially where they were little m en­ aced by hostile aircraft. Airships possessed a great radius of action, valuable in the large spaces of the Empire, and they could also cruise for long periods at low speeds, enabling them to follow tribal forces very closely. D espite these qualities the proposed use of airships had been dropped from the plans for air control in M esopotam ia by February 1921. Airships were too costly for a schem e whose political attraction de­ pended m ainly upon its economy; their fabric envelope tended to perish in hot clim ates; and above all a cheap lifting gas that could be used w ithout risk of fire had still to be developed. In 1926 the use of airships was again proposed, this tim e as large troop transports in police work, as hospital vessels in difficult country, and for conveying aeroplanes between the m ain air stations of the Empire. The Air Staff hoped that the very large airships then being built could carry six aeroplanes with their

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crew up to 2,500 m iles, could launch them in (light, and could rapidly transport a heavier-than-air squadron to any threatened point. The idea w as not thoroughly discussed, and further speculation w as ended by the R101 airship disaster of 1931, in which Lord Thom son, then Secretary of State for Air, lost his life.7

Technology The claim made by several historians that Royal Air Force equipm ent became increasingly obsolete during the last few Trenchard years can easily be confirmed from documentary evidence. Som e shortcom ings of the Bristol Fighter have already been referred to. Its range w as too short; its carrying power was inadequate, especially to higher altitudes,- and above all it could not be fitted with a bombsight, which m eant that attacks had to be delivered very low, using bom bs fitted with short-delay fuses. The Bristol could not lift bombs, extra petrol and a w ireless at the sam e time; since the radio was om itted on offensive flights, the chance of rescue after a forced landing in distant territory was m uch reduced. Trenchard seem ed unable to grasp the importance of these technical lim itations; he urged that the Bristol had 'great power' if only it were 'used energetically'. The Bristol Fighter w as not intrinsically a poor aircraft, indeed in its heyday it had been one of the m ost formidable m achines on the Western Front, but it is hardly surprising that an aeroplane designed as a fighter in 1916 should perform badly as a bomber ten years later. The other m ainstay of the policing squadrons in the 1920s, the venerable de Havilland 9A, was little better. Although it could lift an adequate load, its engine w as unreliable - in March 1928 its radius of action from Aden had to be curtailed for fear of forced landings in Zeidi territory. The old engines needed frequent attention, which reduced the rate at which sorties could be flown. By 1928 at the very latest it w as clear that m any policing aircraft were entirely obsolete, a state of affairs which prompted m uch m uttered criticism , and which Sam uel Hoare (the Air M inister) felt quite unable to defend.8 Roger Beaumont has noted that the design of policing aircraft 're­ mained subordinate to policy'. In a sense this is a truism , because m ilitary technologies are not selected and developed in va cuo according to entirely self-referential criteria of excellence, but to fulfil particular operational, financial and even political needs. The search for a new policing aircraft in the 1920s is a perfect illustration. The developing system of im perial air routes served not only a m ilitary but also a political function. The more comprehensive the network of air com m u­ nication, the more easily Trenchard could argue that any given territory should be protected by the air force,- because once a region was linked to

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the wider system of imperial air defence, it could be defended in emergency by bombers m oved from elsewhere, without expensive increases in the total number of squadrons being necessary. The eco­ nom ics of Trenchard's argum ent for the defence of Singapore by the torpedo bomber rather than by the heavy gun relied upon the creation of an air route between India and Singapore along which squadrons could be m oved to counter any Japanese threat in the Far East. But if policing squadrons were to be exchanged between different theatres, they had all to be organized on sim ilar lines and equipped with broadly sim ilar aircraft. The situation a t Singapore w as more com plicated, however, in that the sam e aircraft which was to police the Indian Frontier w as expected tc act in the very different role of torpedo bomber at Singapore. T hus in July 1927, for example, the CID recommended that, while the respective m erits of the heavy gun and the torpedo bomber were further investigated, the Air M inistry continue to organize a chain of air bases between C alcutta and Singapore and to develop a suitable dual-purpose aircraft. Such a m achine would outm anoeuvre the three m ain enem ies of the air force at Singapore: the Admiralty, the War Office and the Japa­ nese.9 Trenchard's political need to increase the air force presence at Singapore therefore framed the broad outlines of the technical specifica­ tion issued in January 1926. T h is called for a landplane able to perform as a bomber at high altitudes, or to carry a heavy torpedo with corre­ spondingly reduced performance. A m odest m axim um speed of only 118 m iles per hour was demanded; but the specification em phasized visiblility, defensive qualities and the need to operate from rough or enclosed aerodromes. It w as hoped that trials would begin early in 1928 and delivery a year later.10 The programme started auspiciously enough. By July 1926 three firm s had tendered designs, of which the one subm itted by Vickers seem ed the m ost prom ising torpedo bomber. The new type was designed expressly for the air reinforcement of Singapore, but while it w as in preparation a day bomber, the Hawker Horsley, w as converted to carry a torpedo. The Air Staff feared the Adm iralty m ight attem pt to gain control of the Horsley squadrons on the grounds that the torpedo w as a naval weapon; they were to be countered by arguing that 'torpedo dropping is consid­ erably easier than bombing' and hence could be performed by ordinary air force pilots - a m anifestation of Trenchard's slogan 'the air is one and indivisible'. It w as hoped to send a Horsley squadron to Singapore to clinch the case against the heavy gun, but the type had a Condor engine which was not entirely satisfactory. The new Vickers design, later nam ed the Vildebeeste, w as also delayed by engine trouble, and by October 1930 it w as even suggested a better m achine could be produced

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if the programme were started afresh. Nevertheless, when John Salm ond (the CAS) inspected the Vildebeeste at Northolt in July 1931 he thought the type prom ising enough to begin development, especially as a m odem m achine w as by now badly needed to replace the Horsley.11 H is optim ism proved quite m isplaced. In Novem ber 1929 Trenchard had been warned that the Vildebeestes were in danger of being 'out of date before we get them unless they are produced very soon'. Service trials had shown that the Vildebeeste performed little better than the Horsley torpedo bomber, but a more powerful engine gave constant trouble when fitted. Salm ond did not allow this disappointm ent to dent his faith in the aeroplane for which the Air M inistry once hoped so much. He loyally suggested, in Decem ber 1931, that it be modified to carry general-purpose equipment. But by this stage, the various and conflicting roles for which the Vildebeeste w as required were threaten­ ing the fundam entals of the programme. Hopes were dashed when it w as found that bomber units could not skilfully launch torpédos, unless they were permanently allotted to coastal defence. An attem pt w as made in 1933 to salvage som ething of the Singapore reinforcement policy. Each m ajor port w as now to have a permanent quota of torpedo bombers, so it w as suggested that the reinforcements need only be trained in level bombing against a m oving target; but further trials showed that war­ ships were likely to be more vulnerable to dive bombing, and the Vildebeeste w as unsuited to this form of attack. It gradually became clear that the programme would have to diverge into at least four quite distinct variants if any were to become efficient; but the Vildebeeste, conceived as a com prom ise, did not adapt well to specialization.12 The aircraft eventually entered service in 1932, three years behind schedule. Only five squadrons were equipped with the type, and only three served overseas. When the wave of Japanese attack broke over M alaya in Decem ber 1941, two squadrons were in Singapore. The Vildebeestes, by now utterly obsolete, suffered heavy losses at the hands of m odem m achines. In February 1942 the rem nants were merged into a single squadron; this was annihilated over Java and Sum atra the following m onth.13 The failure of the Vildebeeste gives more substance to the views of som e historians m entioned at the beginning of this section, of whom M alcolm Sm ith has perhaps m ost accurately hinted at the process of com prom ise at work. But if the Vildebeeste failed, other designs suc­ ceeded, and these reached the overseas squadrons by the end of the 1920s. From the middle of the decade it w as recognized that the geographical context of air policing demanded a special type of aero­ plane, rather than one which had been designed primarily for European operations. These policing aircraft - officially known as General Pur­

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pose m achines - needed a range of at least 500 m iles, and a service ceiling of 17,000 feet, if they were to reach distant targets high in the m ountains. Handling qualities were especially important, and the sm all, rugged airstrips in the Empire demanded a slow landing speed, a rapid take off at m edium altitudes (of between three and six thousand feet) and a good view of the ground for the pilot. Bomb load did not have to be very large, 500 pounds w as thought sufficient, nor did performance have to be high, since air opposition w as unlikely. General Purpose aircraft had also to work with the arm y and the navy, and for the latter a float undercarriage had to be fitted. D oubtless such m achines w ould be 'of no use at all in a European emergency', but they were never intended to do more than police the Empire,- they were not to serve in Britain itself. When the aircraft became available it w as hoped to re-equip Aden first, as the Bristol Fighters there were badly showing their age.14 Eight General Purpose types were designed as possible replacem ents for the DH9A. Of these the de H avilland Hound had by far the best performance (better even than the excellent Fairey Fox day bomber) and w as considered by the Air M inistry to be 'in a class by itself'. Yet the Air M ember for Supply and Research placed the Hound fifth in order of preference, and did not even select it for General Purpose service trials. High performance was sim ply not important enough to outweigh the other disadvantages of the type: notably the stowage of the desert equip­ m ent under the wings, where it m ight be damaged in a forced landing. Of the remaining aircraft, the W estland Wapiti and the Fairey IIIF, conservative designs which derived from earlier types, were sent to the overseas com m ands for trials. Reports were requested in particular on take off and landing from sm all, rough aerodromes; on the stowage of desert equipment; and on the behaviour of the engine in hot weather. The sleek IIIF w as just the faster, but although both aircraft were found to be suitable 'there is not the slightest doubt that the air cooled engine is preferable to the water cooled'. The Wapiti was therefore thought to have the advantage because its air-cooled engine would be more reliable and easier to m aintain in the arduous geographical conditions of the Empire. In the event, both aircraft were placed in production, because there were not enough Jupiter VIII engines to equip all squadrons with Wapitis, and because the IIIF prom ised to be the better floatplane. W apitis served with the m ajority of the squadrons - those in Iraq and India - while the IIIF went to Egypt, Aden and Sudan. The details of the General Purpose specification and the process of selection clearly indicate the influence of geography and clim ate upon policing technol­ ogy. M achines of higher performance were repeatedly eschewed in favour of those that were rugged and reliable over deserts, sw am ps and m ountains.15

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The specification for a high performance bomber which the Air M inistry issued in A ugust 1926 suggests that they fully recognized the difference between European and imperial conditions. During the Great War, only the fastest m achines could penetrate enemy airspace by day, even to the short ranges at which daylight raids were then carried out. The Air M inistry accordingly requested a m axim um speed of no less than 180 m iles per hour for their new bomber, far in excess of even the fastest fighters then in service. Their vision w as am ply rewarded, for the winning design, the Hawker Hart, was an aeroplane of captivating beauty whose stream lined form represented a 'm ajor breakthrough in performance'. With an all-metal structure, it was designed by Sidney C am m around a com pact but powerful Rolls Royce water-cooled engine. The prototype flew in June 1928 and trials dem onstrated that its high speed had not been gained by the sacrifice of handling qualities or of easy m aintenance. Delivery began in January 1930.16 The Hart was soon found to be suitable for India,- fifty-seven aircraft were accordingly fitted with desert equipment, large tyres and extra fuel; they flew with three Indian squadrons until 1939. Their high perform­ ance w as particularly valued on the Frontier as they were the only aircraft which could m eet the Afghan air menace on equal terms, especially after 1937 when the Afghans began to employ the Hind, itself a high-speed derivative of the Hart. Others served in Egypt and Palestine. Aircraft designed from the outset to perform m any tasks are usually mediocre in all respects: the Vickers Vildebeeste illustrates this well. The truly great multi-purpose aircraft, such as the de H avilland M os­ quito or the Junkers 88, are often intended at first only for specialized ex­ cellence, but their adaptability later com es to light. T his is true of the Hawker Hart. Designed as a fast bomber for Europe, it could do alm ost anything except carry a torpedo. Quite by accident the Air M inistry had found its elusive multi-purpose aircraft, and a whole fam ily of types evolved from the basic design. The Dem on (fighter), the Audax, Hector and Hartbee (army co-operation aircraft), the Hardy (general-purpose machine) and the Osprey (naval fighter) - all were adapted in turn from the original Hart. Though the Hardy w as not entirely satisfactory, the Audax served in both India and Egypt.17 The desert equipment, m entioned several tim es above, provided stranded crews w ith the m eans of survival and a few spare parts with which to m ake emergency repairs after a forced landing away from an airfield. It was foolhardy to fly over the desert w ithout these stores, but som e anxious units tended to over-insure. Edward Colem an recalls that the D H 9As of 84 Squadron in Iraq were burdened with two auxiliary petrol tanks under the top wing; an extra wheel on the side of the fuselage,- a five-gallon drum of emergency drinking w ater suspended

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from the bomb rack; a spare radiator under the belly; cockpit and engine covers, screw pickets, ropes, tools, groundsheets, blankets, rations and armoured car supplies on two luggage racks under the wings; and a canvas chargul of water tied to the wing tip to provide one cool drink on landing. Since the DH9A w as not originally designed for desert opera­ tions, all these stores had to be carried externally, which greatly increased drag, and reduced the m axim um speed of the aircraft to little more than the safe m inim um level speed. It w as therefore hardly surprising that Colem an found it difficult to catch up w ith flights of m i­ grating pelicans, flying at about seventy m iles per hour. Furthermore, since the stores were slung externally, they were the item s m ost likely to be damaged in an emergency landing. The desert equipm ent w as originally carried because the unreliable engine of the D H 9A made forced landings a frequent hazard: but the emergency stores were so heavy they strained the engine and further reduced its reliablility. Robert Brooke-Popham (the AO C Iraq) suggested that a multi-engined aircraft w as needed, but the new policing types were m uch more dependable and made this unnecessary. Pilots schooled on the DH9A, however, were at first reluctant to trust the reliablility of the new designs, and persisted in overloading them. Eventually the Air M inistry had to intervene and decree that desert equipm ent w as intended purely for emergencies; it w as not an alternative load to m aintain an aircraft away from its base.18 The heat, dust, rains, gales, poor com m unications and indifferent aerodromes encountered in the Empire m ade it difficult to keep m a­ chines serviceable for long periods at a time. In India the nadir w as perhaps reached in 1922. During his tour of inspection John Salm ond found that the squadron at Q uetta had only five serviceable m achines the m ost in any Indian squadron at that tim e. The two squadrons at Risalpur could m uster between them only two aircraft fit to fly. Operations in the Sudan in 1920 were severely hampered by a fire in February which destroyed all aircraft spares in the country. Even when spares were available, the depots could not carry out repairs and overhauls fast enough to ensure that a squadron alw ays had twelve aircraft serviceable during prolonged operations. In M arch 1924 John Salm ond estim ated that the aeroplanes of a squadron could norm ally be kept fully serviceable for periods of less than a month, but average serviceability would decline to seventy-five per cent over six months, and to seventy per cent over longer periods of constant operations. Aircraft were very fragile, and were vulnerable even when on the ground. In February 1928 a gale at M aan damaged three aircraft which had to be sent by rail to Am m an for overhaul; stalls for the aeroplanes were later built to protect them from these storm s. The developing system of air

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routes, however, could be used to m aintain aircraft in the field. During the Palestine riots of 1929, spare tyres from Egypt and Liberty engines from Iraq were flown to Am m an. The squadron engaged had an average of nine aircraft available during the first ten days of the disturbances.19 One of the m ost frequent form s of damage, besides enemy action, resulted from the rough, hard surfaces of m any im perial airfields. Tailskid fractures were very com m on but were usually repaired easily, provided spares were at hand. Tyres were also often punctured by heavy landings, stones, ruts or thorns, and m ost aircraft carried a spare wheel strapped outside the fuselage to allow rapid repairs. In the later 1920s a very thick low-pressure tyre w as produced; this w as punctured less easily, and it became a standard fixture on Indian Harts. The Fairey IIIFs that toured east Africa in 1932 had Goodyear low-pressure tyres which saved the aircraft from shock and possible damage at som e of the rougher landing grounds, although there were two punctures at M om basa caused by sharply cut bamboo stalks. Arthur Harris recalled that at both Tanga and Morogoro 'it rained like blazes but we had no difficulty in getting off on our "doughnut" wheels - w ithout them we would have been in the soup'. Low-pressure tyres were one of the few technical innovations which could be directly attributed to conditions in the Empire, although the im plications of the development were not especially far-reaching. When sent for service trials in 1928, favourable reports were received on the Fairey IIIF, in part because it could take off and land in a sm all space, and its oleo undercarriage absorbed any roughness of the aerodrome surface m uch better than the elastic shock absorber of the DH9A. The Wapiti could also use sm all airfields, but its undercarriage had to be modified as it tended to roll when taxying on rough surfaces and som e­ tim es overturned aircraft when they landed.20 The vast distances of the Empire posed great problem s for aircraft designed for Europe. The desert equipm ent of the D H 9A included extra fuel tanks, and m any local m odifications were made by the squadrons to extend the operational radius of policing aircraft. Even the new types that entered service from the late 1920s still suffered from inadequate range, which never seem ed to be great enough to satisfy the overseas com m ands. In August 1928 the Middle East air force reported very favourably on the new Fairey IIIF. They thought it 'em inently suitable for work in the Sudan', but they suggested that an additional petrol tank of at least thirty gallons be installed, as the range of the standard IIIF was otherwise no greater than that of the 9A with its extra fuel; this w as of great importance 'in an enorm ous country like Sudan where radius of action counts for so m uch'. Experimental ferry tankage totalling 150 gallons w as fitted to one Fairey IIIF, but even when this was only about three-quarters full the aircraft took off slowly, landed too fast and w as

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sluggish on the controls. The Wapiti, however, w as successfully fitted w ith two sixty-gallon underwing tanks; it still handled w ell and retained reserves of power, although more than a thousand pounds over its designed m axim um perm issible weight. The tanks could be jettisoned in emergency by a cockpit lever. Service trials in Iraq in 1931 gave a m axim um endurance of twelve hours for a single aircraft, and a practical endurance for m achines flying in form ation of ten and a half hours, which translated into the very im pressive range of 950 air m iles. The tanks were useful in search operations and two Wapiti squadrons in Iraq were accordingly equipped. These underwing tanks were designed as a response to the vast spaces of the Empire, but the technology w as also of value in Europe.21

Training and doctrine From the outset, air control in Iraq w as seen to offer a perfect opportunity to train air force crews under active service conditions. The Cairo Conference of March 1921 recommended acceptance of the Trenchard scheme, partly because it recognized the vital need to train the air force adequately for war, it offered a testing ground for air force potential, and it would give senior officers and their staff valuable experience of independent com m and. There w as certainly no shortage of action in Iraq in the 1920s. Edward Ellington noted with enthusiasm that the units in Kurdistan 'have great opportunities as sm all show s are of alm ost daily occurrence'. The air m ail service between Cairo and Baghdad w as also begun partly for training purposes. It w as certainly felt at the tim e that operations in Iraq provided valuable experience which w as relevant to European conditions. In February 1923, Sam uel Hoare (the Air Minister) suggested that the RAF w as now m uch more efficient than the French Air Force, in part because it had the advantage of the operational training in Iraq. In M ay 1925 Leo Amery (the Colonial Secretary) opposed the evacuation of Iraq by the air force at the end of the treaty period, as this would sacrifice 'a wonderful training ground'. Sheikh M ahm ud of Kurdistan, against whose followers so m any bombing raids were carried out during the 1920s, was 'jokingly called Director of RAF Training, because he gave us so m uch experience in the planning and execution of air operations'. Reports on air force operations overseas were printed by the hundred and circulated to the Staff College and to hom e com m ands for the purposes of training and education.22 Iraq w as no doubt seen at the tim e as a splendid air force training ground, but the relevance of such training to European conditions m ay be questioned. Officers certainly gained experience of independent command, aircrew flew active m issions, and ground personnel had to

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keep aircraft serviceable during prolonged operations. But in som e areas the experience of Iraq m ay have m isled the air force in its preparations for European war. The problem of navigating the air route across the Syrian D esert was ingeniously solved by sending a convoy of vehicles along the route to plough up the ground, leaving a clear track which could be visually followed. The existence of this track, however, m eant that the wide, alm ost featureless expanse of the Iraqi desert, perfect for training in precise navigation, w as not fully exploited; aircraft flying over the desert would invariably follow the track unless expressly ordered not to do so. Perhaps the high com m and were unwilling to add yet another difficulty to all those which pilots already had to face. N ot until 1931 were direct point-to-point flights across the desert begun as navigational training, w ireless direction-finding stations being used as an insurance against getting lost. When Basil Embry returned to England in 1939, after a long tour overseas, he w as particularly struck by the em phasis placed upon training in long-distance navigation, of which he had little experience. The opportunities afforded by the desert had certainly not been fully exploited, but this did not necessarily result from air policing, for the entire air force before the late 1930s too little cared for the science of navigation. Embry recalls that even in England pilots used to 'navigate' by following a railway line. If they becam e lost it was not uncom m on to fly low over a railway station and attem pt to read its sign board, or even to land in a field and ask a farmer the way it w as clearly unwise to rely on such m ethods in wartim e over Berlin or the Ruhr.23 Wild anim als provided one opportunity for training probably unique to the Empire. John Salm ond m aintained that the procedure for hunting gazelle from aircraft was strictly controlled. Pilots were not permitted to fire at random into herds, but had to select individual beasts. They were only allowed to hunt for ten m inutes at a time, could not let wounded gazelle escape and had alw ays to bring in anim als for food once they had been hit. The Air M inistry tried to prevent such hunting, but Salm ond protested against the ban, partly because the practice was, he claim ed, not as cruel as it seemed, and partly because gazelle offered a useful m oving target against which pilots could expend live am m uni­ tion. Trenchard allowed hunting to continue, but it w as apparently not alw ays carried out according to Salm ond's 'hum ane' procedure. Arthur Lee remem bers shooting wildly at gazelle from an armoured car during desert patrols. 'We chased after them, the Vickers blasting away along­ side me, and managed to hit a couple, which we picked up and took home - the m eat was alw ays a m uch relished addition to our normal fare.' The use of anim als as live targets perhaps reveals more about imperial attitudes to wildlife than it does about the value of police work for the

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training of the air force. More conventional m ethods of hunting were used to supplem ent the food supply where gam e w as plentiful; the flight detached to Kapoeta in south-eastern Sudan in A ugust 1936 fed on gazelle, tiang, dik-dik and sword guinea fowl shot by the crack m arks­ m en of the unit. H unting could nourish a force-landed crew aw aiting res­ cue, and suitable weapons were accordingly carried on patrol. The natural world did not remain entirely passive; during the 1936 Borna plateau reconaissance a lion entered the cam p one night, sniffed around the tents, and dragged off a gazelle that had been shot for lunch.24 While policing operations provided experience in active service conditions, the circum stances of Iraq or India greatly differed from those of Europe. Bomber crews in a European war would have to navigate for long distances, perhaps over the sea through cloud or darkness without knowing the speed of the wind or its direction. M issions in Europe would usually be flown at higher altitudes than in the Empire and bombing would norm ally take place only after a long, dangerous and tiring flight. Above all, British bombers would have to penetrate de­ fended airspace in squadron form ations. U nits would not usually en­ counter such conditions overseas. Individual training required m uch attention and petrol w as norm ally too closely rationed for entire squad­ rons to practise together. From 1936, however, as more funds becam e available, collective Group training exercises were begun in India. These em phasized precise navigation by instrum ents and accurate bombing after a long flight, requirem ents which only underlined the difference between European and Indian conditions. Sm all detached flights, with few instructors, found it hard to reach the standards required of service squadrons, and the constant m inor operations frequently interrupted training schedules. The gap between European and imperial conditions widened further after 1934 when rearmam ent began to quicken the pace of technical change in m ilitary aviation. When Basil Embry returned to Britain in 1939 after five years in India he 'felt like Rip van Winkle awakening from a long sleep...an airm an of a past age' and wondered if he would ever be up to date again.25 Whatever the training value of policing operations, there is no doubt that the m en who guided the RAF into and during the 1939-45 war had spent m any of their form ative air force years in the Empire. Charles Portal, Chief of the Air Staff from 1941 to 1945, com m anded at Aden in the mid-1930s. Arthur Harris, who presided over the destruction of Germ an cities from 1942 to 1945, had earlier practised his deadly trade in Kurdistan and Palestine. Edward Ellington, Chief of the Air Staff during the crucial early phase of rearmament, had unrivalled experience of com m and in the Middle East and India. These are but three of the m any m en who spent years organizing repression in the Empire before

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achieving prominence in the preparation and conduct of the war against Germany. Hugh Dowding w as exceptional in having spent only a few w eeks at the head of an imperial command, in Palestine during the autum n of 1929. Yet no clear patterns of influence emerge. The differ­ ences between Portal and Harris over the conduct of the air offensive against Germ any in 1944, for instance, cannot be explained by divergent im perial experience. Trenchard, after all, became the m ost consistent disciple of the air offensive, yet he had gained his experience of com ­ m and in close support of the army on the Western Front. In the 1920s he advocated a doctrine of strategic bombing because he understood the political needs of air force survival, not because he had system atically analysed police operations. If policing confirmed his prejudices, it w as precisely because his m ind w as already closed.26 N or is it valid to suggest, as som e historians have done, that air policing seriously distorted the development of RAF bombing doctrine. The Air Staff claim ed that the unescorted bomber would 'alw ays get through' as early as July 1923, before the practice of air control had fully developed, although they did cite the Third Afghan War in favour of their belief that bombing alone m ight decide a European conflict. Edward Ellington was fond of drawing sim ilar parallels between air policing and European warfare, but for the m ost part the air force doctrine of strate­ gic bombing evolved independently of any direct im perial influence. Explicit references to imperial operations illustrated beliefs already firm ly held on other grounds, but did not provide conclusive evidence for any particular hypothesis. Indeed Trenchard, in his im portant M ay 1928 paper T h e W ar O b je c t o f an A ir Force, denied that air power alone could decide a 'war of the first m agnitude with civilized nations'; he m ade no reference at all to colonial warfare in the paper, and in an explanatory note to Hankey he rejected any parallels between a war in Europe and one against a sm all state like Yemen. In July 1938 the Chiefs of Staff, when considering the possible effects of Germ an air attack on Britain, confessed that past experience offered little guidance, suggested only the G reat War or the contemporary conflict in Spain as possible parallels, and did not m ention police bombing. Air policing m ay have encouraged the tendency to exaggerate the m oral effects of bombing, but it is hard to find any more specific influence upon air force offensive doctrine.27

Conclusion A previous chapter discussed the com plex relationship between geogra­ phy and state power in m arginal regions. The influence of geography can also be identified when policing strategy, training and technology are examined. If the various air com m ands were to support each other in the

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vastness of the Empire, a chain of air bases along which units could rapidly m ove w as required, a strategic need which in turn im posed uniform organization and m aterial upon policing squadrons if they were to be interchangeable. The arduous conditions of the Empire proved inhospitable to the venerable types, dating from the G reat War, which did the donkey work of policing in the 1920s, so their replacem ents were designed explicitly for overseas conditions and selected m ainly for reliability rather than performance. Air policing w as seen from the outset as an opportunity to train the air force under active service conditions but the experience of 'sm all w ars' m ay have been m isleading preparation for European conflict, as navigational training w as ne­ glected and no air opposition encountered. The air force leadership w as schooled in the Empire, but this does not appear to have exerted any decisive influence upon air force bombing doctrine, which evolved to suit the m ilitary conditions of Europe and the political conditions of Whitehall. N or did air policing have a detrim ental effect upon the design of bombers intended to serve in Europe, as their specifications were issued without reference to im perial requirem ents. Adm ittedly the Vickers Vildebeeste, developed in conjuction with a strategy of reinforc­ ing Singapore, failed both in Europe and overseas, but if the air force proved unable to defend this nodal point of im perial com m unication from the Japanese, the other services did no better.

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Imperial politics and the role of force

I am of the belief that any outcry is artificial and is the result of the novelty of the attack and the difficulty of countering it rather than of its severity. I expect that in a short time, if we use our Air Force wisely and humanely, such outcry as there is will cease and air action will be regarded as a normal and suitable weapon for enforcing the just demands of government. Philip Game (the AOC India), 18 October 1923.' In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India...can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machinegunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. George Orwell, 'Politics and the English Language'.2 The m assacre at A m ritsar is one of the m ost ghastly episodes in the history of British imperial policing; it perhaps did more than any single act to undermine the legitim acy of British rule in India. After prolonged civil strife in the Punjab, a crowd of about 5,000 assem bled in the Jallianw alla Bagh - a piece of w aste ground - on the afternoon of 13 April 1919. With no specific warning, a party of infantry opened fire on the hostile but unarmed gathering. Firing continued for ten m inutes; alm ost every bullet found a m ark in the dense m ass; and about 1,500 people were killed or wounded. General Dyer, who com m anded the troops, later said that he intended his action to produce a 'm oral effect' not only on the Am ritsar crowd, but throughout the Punjab. The Hunter C om ­ m ittee, which investigated these events, at first recommended that the British government 'repudiate em phatically the doctrine of "frightful­ n e ss" upon which Brigadier-General Dyer based his action'. Edwin

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M ontagu and W inston Churchill developed this theme when the report w as debated in the C om m ons in July 1920. In one of his finest speeches Churchill asked the House to weigh M acaulay's expressive horror at 'the m ost frightful of all spectacles, the strength of civilization without its mercy'. He hoped that frank terrorism would never be acknowledged a principle of imperial policing, noted that British power in India had never rested on force alone, and pragm atically warned that the rule of naked violence 'would be fatal' to the Empire.3 The Am ritsar m assacre prompted an explicit assessm ent of the level of force appropriate to imperial policing. The Hunter Com m ittee claim ed that m ilitary action by British units, whether in wartim e or against civil unrest, had alw ays been governed by the principle of using no more violence than w as needed to force the enem y to subm it. In his recent work Anthony Clayton apparently assum es that air force intentions were all for the best in the best of all possible empires, that people were not bombed deliberately but only when 'absolutely unavoidable', and that children were killed only by regrettable 'm ishaps' or when they foolishly ignored clear warnings. Such tidy illusions cannot survive contact with the evidence, for reality w as both more brutal and more com plicated than this. Imperial policing fluctuated uncertainly be­ tween excessive force, which m ight antagonize neutrals and cause lasting bittem ess, and a show of w eakness, which m ight encourage the undecided to stay friendly with the rebels. The doctrine of m inim um necessary force, which broadly informed operations on the ground, had been clearly infringed by Dyer, but it was at first more difficult to decide how traditional guidelines should be applied to the novel techniques of air policing. N ew weapons of war, such as the crossbow, poison gas or the atom ic bomb, have usually prompted ethical debate, and the aircraft w as no exception. It was som etim es argued that the bomber relied on an innovative exem plary use of force to restore 'order'; but the m ethods (or at least the apologias) of air policing were later adapted to conform more closely to traditional doctrine.4 T h is chapter exam ines the ethical debates which were a continuous undercurrent to the stream of argum ent about repressive m ethods. It does so from a political and operational rather than a philosophical perspective.

Lim ited and unlim ited uses of force Before the relationship between air policing and the doctrine of m ini­ m um necessary force can be assessed, som e estim ate m ust be made of the potential m axim um violence of bombing. Once established, this can serve as a yardstick against which the lethality of typical air policing can

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be m easured. But caution is needed, for som e descriptive labels which sound neutral are tendentious and ideological: a conflict which m ight seem a 'sm all war' to the Royal Air Force m ight be a total war to the tribesmen. The Sam awah operations of 30 N ovem ber and 1 Decem ber 1913 were considered by John Salm ond to be the nearest approach so far to intensive police bombing. One squadron of Vickers Vernons, three squadrons of D H 9A s and one squadron of Sopwith Snipes employed a m axim um total of forty serviceable m achines. During the two days these aircraft dropped just over twenty five tons of bom bs and 8,600 incendiaries, and fired more than 15,000 rounds of sm all arm s am m uni­ tion. These totals were trifling compared w ith the gigantic tonnage dropped by the Am ericans on Vietnam, for instance, but when concen­ trated against a few villages they were lethal enough. Over a year, Salm ond estim ated, a DH9A squadron could drop about 400 tons of bom bs in continuous operations, even taking into account poor weather, unserviceability and other form s of 'friction'. Bombers could deliver far more explosive than conventional artillery. A Vickers Vimy squadron, for example, could in a single flight drop a weight of bom bs equivalent to 4,335 18-pounder shells. Air power vastly increased the potential for government violence.5 Although policing aircraft could undoubtedly deliver a tonnage of bom bs im pressive enough by the standards of the 1920s, it w as often argued by air force apologists that air policing achieved its results not by inflicting heavy casualties, but through 'm oral effect'. The m eaning of this nebulous notion shifted according to what was seen as operationally possible or politically expedient. M oral effect w as originally linked more directly to hum an casualties, but from about 1924 it cam e to signify the indefinite disruption of everyday life. T his sem antic shift was inspired in part by the discovery that tribesm en could reduce their losses by adapting to air attack, for it m ust be constantly borne in m ind that the deadliness of the bomber w as not sim ply the product of given technical and geographical conditions, but also the outcom e of a dialec­ tical m ilitary relationship between air force and tribesmen. But the growing em phasis upon inconvenience rather than death also reflected the political need to conform more closely to the doctrine of m inim um necessary force. The original suggestion, that the bomber m ight achieve a more lasting 'pacification' at the cost of heavy initial casualties, cam e perilously close to the 'frightfulness' of General Dyer, and was effec­ tively challenged by the opponents of air policing.6 In April 1923 Philip G am e (the AO C India) claim ed that the 'm aterial results' of bombing, or less euphem istically the number of people it killed, were, like those of rifle and artillery fire, 'com paratively sm all'. He suggested it m ight take more than a ton of bom bs to kill a man, but

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this m ust be regarded as no more than a mean, for the results of actual operations reveal a wide variety of destructive effects. During the G arluak N uer operations carried out by a single squadron in January and February 1928, the losses inflicted by the air force were felt to be slight, as it w as estim ated 'that not more than 200 N uers were killed'. Elsewhere casualties were usually m uch fewer. Between 11 and 31 M ay 1930 over forty-six tons of bom bs were dropped on M ohm and forces on the Frontier, but only about twenty-one people were killed, as the lashkars spent m ost of the tim e in the shelter of caves. A week of bombing by the Shukra detachm ent of the Aden Flight in October 1925 appears to have been more deadly, as it w as claim ed that fifty-two Zeidi troops were killed. But it is hard to m easure the accuracy of these reports, and the latter figure seem s inflated. Variations in the number of casualties can be explained by the nature of the terrain, the extent to which attacks achieved surprise, the protective m easures taken on the ground and the degree of resistance offered. In open desert areas a few squadrons m ight som etim es inflict heavy casualties upon tribesm en unfam iliar with the effects of bombing and ignorant of the best defensive m easures: elsewhere losses were more often m easured in dozens than in hundreds.7 Air policing operations were som etim es intended to cause the great­ est possible hum an loss. T h is w as especially true in the Southern Sudan, where the lives of the local people - poor, black, naked and pre-literate - were held very cheap. In February 1920 operations were planned with a 'view to inflicting heavy casualties on the fighting personnel of the enem y' but owing to sm oke and natural cover this w as not accom ­ plished. During the Decem ber 1927 attack on Dengkurs, m any people were seen to rush out of the village at the foot of the pyramid, and 'the m achines circled round for som e tim e shooting at individual m en as they bolted for cover'. M ost escaped, causing the Governor of Upper N ile Province to conclude, with an air of regret, that 'as a m eans of hum an slaughter the planes failed'. Further up the imperial hierarchy of race, attitudes became more am bivalent. In October 1923 Indian air head­ quarters accepted the need to issue warnings, but nevertheless went on to em phasise the value of attacking by surprise and in m axim um force, as this gave 'the greatest hope of inflicting casualties'. M achine guns and 'm ankilling' bom bs were to be used against all m ovem ent as it w as the loss of hum an lives that caused the greatest 'm oral effect'. But there w as som e uncertainty about the precise task of the air force - whether it w as merely to com pel com pliance with government demands, by disrupting everyday tribal life, or whether it was to inflict punishm ent by lethal bombing. In the event these dilem m as were resolved more by the operational lim its of the aeroplane than by any clarification of the

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relationship between political aim s and the appropriate level of force.8 John Keegan has claim ed that French officers dwelt upon the deaths inflicted by their units during colonial cam paigns in a way that m ight 'bring physical revulsion to the faces of British veterans'. T his doubtful generalization m ust at least adm it som e exceptions. Geoffrey Salm ond certainly showed no squeam ishness when he reported that, dining Frontier operations in June 1927 'a m an who was sheltering in a tree had the whole of his inside blown away by a bomb', adding for em phasis that the 'm utilating effects' of bomb wounds greatly frightened the tribes­ men. In M arch 1924 the Officer Com m anding 45 Squadron in Iraq described lethal bombing by his unit with distasteful relish: Where the Arab and Kurd had just begun to realise that if they could stand a little noise, they could stand bombing, and still argue; they now know what real bombing means, in casualties and damage; they now know that within 45 minutes a full sized village (vide attached photos of Kushan-AlAjaza) can be practically wiped out and a third of its inhabitants killed or injured by four or five machines which offer them no real target, no opportunity for glory as warriors, no effective means of escape. T his w as too m uch even for the Air M inistry, who underlined som e of the more unpleasant passages, notably that which claim ed 'we now cause real casual ties... that produce a real, as opposed to a purely moral effect'. Yet a taste for the brutal did not prevent this officer from later achieving distinction, and in the ruins of this dying village one can dim ly perceive the horrific firestorm s of Ham burg and Dresden, for the report w as written by Squadron Leader Arthur Harris - already betraying his 'great w eakness' for 'government fireworks'.9 It was, however, the exception rather than the rule to cause deliber­ ate loss of hum an life, and it became usual to warn tribesm en by leaflet that air action w as to be taken against them. There was som e initial reluctance to adopt this policy. In Novem ber 1923 John Salm ond noted that som e people believed the use of warning leaflets would m ake offensive action unnecessary but advised that tribesm en were not yet am enable to such persuasion for illiteracy w as too widespread to m ake written m atter of any use. 'Once a tribe is "o u t" it is quite abortive to bombard it w ith circulars.' 'I agree' noted Trenchard in the margin. Nevertheless, bombing raids in Kurdistan ordered by Salm ond in August and Decem ber 1923 were accom panied by proclam ations explaining why the action had been taken and other attacks, both in Iraq and India, were preceded by warnings. On the Frontier in 1923 Rawlinson would have preferred no warning at all, but by October 1925 the government of India w as insisting that specific written warnings be issued before every resort to bombing. D espite Salm ond's scepticism of Kurdish

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literacy, it seem s that written warnings were heeded. In M ay 1924 the inhabitants of Sulaym aniyah were notified that Sheikh M ahm ud's positions were to be bombed, and although the air attacks did heavy damage, no one w as killed, as the population had already evacuated the. town. In the Hadramawt in 1937, warnings were issued by runner as the population w as largely illiterate and, it was thought, afraid to pick up articles dropped from the air. During the Barzan operations in northern Kurdistan in 1932 one aircraft w as fitted w ith a public address system and used to* warn people of impending attacks and to urge them to surrender.10 When challenged, the Air M inistry alw ays claim ed that they gave am ple notice before attacks. In February 1932, for instance, they as­ serted it had been 'the invariable practice for tribes to be warned that a village is liable to be bombed', adding that harm less dem onstrations alw ays preceded destructive operations. But in practice warning policy w as less consistent than this. After the T azi Khel had 'sniped a bit' and stolen anim als on the Frontier in 1923, they were bombed w ithout warning, which even Philip Gam e, a m an not noted for his tenderness, thought w as 'hardly justifiable', especially as a political controversy followed the death of a wom an and the accidental bombing of som e Afghans. Interestingly, G am e saw the Political Officers as the m ain­ spring of an aggressive bombing policy, and thought that som e tended to call for air action at the least sign of trouble. H is own som ewhat contradictory preference, during those operations intended as punish­ ment, w as for 'a surprise attack (after a general warning)' with the aim of inflicting severe casualties. Warning policy does seem to have become stricter as the procedures of air policing became more established. In the early 1920s there are frequent accounts of operations in which no warning is mentioned: although this does not necessarily imply they were not issued, the reactions on the ground and the casualties inflicted suggest the attacks cam e as a surprise. By the early 1930s it was very rare for air attacks to be sanctioned w ithout at least a general warning som e days before.11 Where warnings were issued to avoid hum an loss, then police opera­ tions had to strike elsewhere to have an effect. In accordance with the doctrine of m inim um necessary force, the continued disruption of everyday life by bombing m ight induce tribesm en to conform to the dem ands of government, w ithout causing loss of life. An aerial blockade could bring great pressure to bear upon the people of a village, w ithout attacking hum an beings directly. Persistent bombing could deny tribes­ m en access to their villages and force them to live in uncomfortable caves where they som etim es suffered from a shortage of water if remote from springs. Aircraft could disperse flocks, which m eant a scarcity of

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anim al products and the loss of valuable beasts to wolves. Patrolling bombers could prevent tribesm en entering their fields, and thus inter­ rupt agriculture and irrigation. Delayed action bom bs and night attacks lit by parachute flares could obstruct vital.w ork and m aintain the blockade even during darkness. In M ay 1934 continuous aircraft patrols in the Aden Protectorate prevented all agricultural activity by the Quteibi, who were anxious to begin ploughing as there had been interm ittent rain since the beginning of the month. Air blockade w as often a prolonged process which greatly strained a squadron, especially if dissidents had laid up supplies before the operations began, had access to rainwater pools and were being aided from outside - like the M ansuri section in the Aden hinterland in 1938, whose eighty fighting m en surrendered only after two m onths' bom bing.12 A more violent form of attack against tribal living conditions w as that intended to destroy, rather than merely disrupt, the m eans of su bsis­ tence; a method which m ight be termed econom ic warfare rather than sim ple blockade. John Salm ond advised Trenchard that air attacks could bum up vital stores of fuel or, by killing livestock, im pose a de fa cto fine upon dissidents. Earlier, 6-inch howitzers had been used to destroy the terraced fields upon which som e Frontier tribesm en depended, and by October 1923 the air force in India were using heavy bom bs not only against terraces, but also against irrigation channels. D rum s of petrol were som etim es dropped with bom bs in the hope of burning crops, food stores or hom es, but w ithout m arked success. The pastoral N uer of the Southern Sudan depended alm ost entirely upon their cattle 'which they are said to value above life or wom en' and attacks upon their herds were intended to disrupt normal life, although one air force officer remained 'doubtful if the N uers have a norm al life in the ordinary m eaning of the expression'. In the open flatlands of the Southern Sudan, cattle were easily detected and could be m achine gunned, bombed, stam peded through villages or, in the dry season, driven away from essential water supplies. Livestock were also attacked in the Aden Protectorate and stores of grain set on fire. In the sum m er of 1928 prolonged air attacks against Sana, the largest town of Yemen, forced m ost of its population to leave and brought trade alm ost to a standstill.13 Although econom ic warfare was not im m ediately aim ed at hum an life, its effects could be enduring and even lethal. It w as argued, with som e justice, that to destroy the subsistence of a tribe w as to condemn som e of its m em bers to slow and painful death. Furthermore, econom ic destruction, while it m ight achieve brief m ilitary or even political success, usually aggravated the fundam ental problem s which had caused tribal dissidence in the first place. Along the Indian Frontier, for example, the m ilitary problem s of the Empire stem m ed partly from the

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com parative poverty of the unadm inistered zone, and the destruction of tribal resources w ithout any reduction in fighting power merely in­ creased the econom ic incentive to raid. The terraced fields on the Frontier hills had been created with years, even generations, of painstak­ ing labour, and an air force suggestion, m ade in 1925, that those in W aziristan should.be destroyed by heavy bom bs w as not approved, as it would have undermined the policy of encouraging peaceful settlem ent for agricultural purposes. By 1937 even the destruction of grain stores w as avoided, except in explicitly punitive operations. T o the Sudanese Nuer, cattle were not merely a m eans of subsistence but 'intim ate com panions from birth to death', the focus for m aterial anxieties and the vehicle for spiritual salvation. Their destruction by government caused lasting resentm ent, led to the starvation of wom en and children, and provoked inter-tribal cattle raids. Even when exercised with som e restraint, the violence of the bomber w as som etim es too great to be an effective form of control.14 If selective violence, in the form of blockade or econom ic warfare, w as to be effective, accurate intelligence, less of a m ilitary than of a social or political nature, w as needed. If the norm al life of a tribe w as to be com pletely disrupted, its 'vital centres' had to be identified. The com ­ m anders of a bombing cam paign needed to know what the tribe de­ pended upon for its existence; the exact location of villages, defensive works and the houses of leading persons; the position of grazing areas, watering places and tracks; and the distribution of shelters. Intelligence had still to be gathered during operations to assess their effect and to discover how the tribe was adapting. Information w as assem bled by photographic reconnaissance and by Special Service Officers, instituted during the 1920 M esopotam ian rebellion to pass m ilitary intelligence direct to headquarters. Special Service Officers lived an isolated exis­ tence in close contact with tribal society and without the custom ary am enities of m ess life. They toured by car, aircraft or on horseback to gather intelligence and had to cultivate the goodwill of the local population (and especially of the more im portant chiefs) but were strictly warned against 'the inclination to drift into native w ays' and were alw ays expected to 'm aintain the standards of European life'. Their tasks were essential to the effective working of air control as 'w ithout information, an aerial cam paign is conducted alm ost blindly'. If block­ ade were to achieve decisive results it w as also advisable for the tribe in question to be given precise term s to which they could adhere once they were w illing to capitulate.15 In certain circum stances, for political reasons, the full destructive power of the policing aircraft w as not unleashed. The bomber w as sim ply too violent and im precise a weapon to effectively repress urban

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rioters. N o pilot could reasonably hope to tell those taking part from those standing by in urban unrest: both would inevitably suffer from any lethal use of air power in towns. Palestine, the m ost densely populated and politically advanced region subject to air control, illustrates this problem especially well. The com m unal conflict occasioned by Zion­ ism w as the dom inant threat to the internal tranquility of the country - its typical expression w as the urban riot. During the disturbances of A ugust 1929, in which Jewish com m unities in m ost m ajor Palestinian towns were attacked by Arabs, policing aircraft were used only in a lim ited way. The High C om m issioner (Sir John Chancellor) refused to allow the air force a free hand, and im posed strict lim its upon its offensive action. He authorized the use of m achine guns only against persons caught com m itting acts of violence, incendiarism or looting; and of bom bs only against hostile bodies crossing the frontier or in sup­ port of ground troops in serious trouble. Since the latter conditions were not realized, no bombing was carried out in A ugust 1929. During the 1936 Arab Revolt, aircraft were used against guerrilla bands, but were not allowed to drop bom bs within 500 yards of any building. When the insurrection flared up again in 1938 Arthur Harris (the AOC) demanded a 'bom b in each village that speaks out of turn' and it appears that som e lim ited attacks on Arab settlem ents were by then carried ou t.16 O utside Palestine a reluctance to attack cities w as also occasionally demonstrated. By 1931 N orm an Bottom ley had com e to accept that riots in towns were 'not a job for action from the air' and should be dealt with by the police, assisted if necessary by soldiers, but this w as only after aircraft had been used at least once against urban disturbances. During the Punjab unrest of 1919 three aircraft were ordered to attack demon­ strators at Gujranwala, near Am ritsar. One pilot carried out the orders, killing twelve people, but the other two returned to base, as they could not tell the rioters from the peaceful citizens. D espite this clear evidence of the exercise of choice, Anthony Clayton places these actions beyond the boundaries of ethical debate, when he claim s that 'aircraft h a d to bomb and fire' on the dem onstrators. One aircraft had bombed Kabul, the Afghan capital, in 1919, but subsequent debates about the role of air power in any future war w ith Afghanistan reveal an uncertainty about the bombing of cities. At the Q uetta Conference of July 1922, for instance, Walter Braithwaite (the G O C Western Command) wondered whether the indiscrim inate bombing of Kabul m ight not infringe 'vari­ ous conventions', although Claude Jacob (the CGS) roundly declared that 'personally, if I were doing the bombing, I should not care what the restrictions were'. The Air M inistry wanted to include Sana, the capital of Yemen, as a possible target for bombing in the event of war with the Iman, but hesitated to do so, m ainly because M uslim disapproval w as

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feared. In the event Sana w as first raided in 1928. T hat year Italian diplom ats lodged a protest against the 'excessive' violence of British air attacks in Yemen, although Signor Grandi later conceded that, if the British had been obliged to bomb the Iman, he felt sure 'they had done so in the m ost gentlem anly m anner possible'.17 The use of air power w as m ost restrained during urban riots, but less reluctance w as shown in bom bing cities outside the Empire or villages w ithin its boundaries. Nevertheless, even in som e rural areas the full violence of the bomber w as not alw ays employed. In Transjordan, although little restraint w as exercised against Wahabi raiders com ing from outside, air power w as used more delicately against dom estic dissidents. The Arab Legion w as considered the primary m eans of quelling internal unrest, and aircraft or armoured cars were only used offensively where it appeared the legion w ould not suffice alone. During the Druze rebellion in Syria, parties of rebels sought sanctuary in Transjordan or used that country as a base from which to launch retaliatory raids. It was, however, decided not to attack on sight all bodies crossing the Syrian border, as this w as bound to cause losses am ong refugees, and would expose the British to 'charges from all quarters'. Air power w as used w ith especial violence against the N uer of the Southern Sudan, but the Air Staff em phasized that even this had not exhausted its destructive potential and 'm oral dem onstration' remained 'the norm al method of em ploym ent'. Som e officers chafed at these restrictions. In A ugust 1923 Group-Captain Charnier (the A O C India) flew over W aziristan and claim ed that if only the air force were allowed 'a real sm ack' at Kaniguram, the chief town, sow ing it with thirty 520pound bom bs per day, 'enorm ous havoc and m oral effect' could be created. There w as an underlying tension between the political need to use the m inim um necessary force, to avoid lasting resentm ents, and the desire of som e air force officers, trained to think in term s of a m ilitary 'solution', to use the m axim um violence at their disposal.18 Air power seem s to have been employed with particular restraint against the tribesm en of the Aden hinterland. T his w as partly because Aden w as only under full-scale air control from 1928, after the m ost violent early phase of air policing w as over. It w as also a question of personality, for the m en such as M cClaughry and Portal who com ­ m anded at Aden in the 1930s, appear to have been less brutal than other senior air officers like Arthur Harris or Philip G am e. In M arch 1937, for instance, Am iri tribal guards were fired upon and it w as decided to punish those responsible. Leaflet warnings announced the tim e, date and place of bombing in advance, and practice bom bs were dropped just before the m ain attack as a final reminder to evacuate. Indeed, M c­ Claughry w as so anxious to avoid the accidental bom bing of the wrong

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targets he som etim es took up to a m onth to prepare a series of raids. But m istakes still occurred. In September 1937 som e villages were bombed after their inhabitants had levied blackm ail from traffic on the Aden to Yemen motor-road. Warnings were issued, but during the raid several bom bs failed to release instantly, fell wide of the target and caused two casualties am ong the unfortunate villagers sheltering in their fields. Restraint partly depended on the readiness of tribesm en to enter a ritual of punishm ent, for if they refused to evacuate their villages and re­ m ained behind to fire at aircraft, then bombing m ight cause casualties unless the m ission were abandoned. N or did the air force ever surrender the right to retaliate when under fire. During 'w atch and ward' patrols on the Frontier, aircrew were perm itted to use their weapons when they or imperial ground forces were fired at, but even then not against villages but only at the individuals clearly identified as responsible.19 Churchill suggested one technical solution to the political problem of lim iting the use of force as early as February 1920. H is original air control schem e allowed for the use of asphyxiating gases which would cause 'discom fort or illness but not death' to dissident tribesmen. Henry Wilson supported Churchill's advocacy of gas as an instrum ent of control, but the Cabinet were reluctant to sanction the use of a weapon that had caused such widespread revulsion during the Great War. Furthermore, the Rif rebels in M orocco were currently killing one Spanish prisoner for each bomb dropped from an aeroplane, and there w as every prospect that sim ilar reprisals m ight follow the use of gas by the British. N or w as gas as innocuous as Churchill supposed. Although officially non-lethal, the suggested variety could permanently damage eyesight and could 'even kill children and sickly persons, more espe­ cially as the people against whom we intend to use it have no m edical knowledge with which to supply antidotes'. Undeterred by the apparent contradiction of 'non-lethal' gas which could kill, Churchill persisted, claim ing that gas bom bs were 'a scientific expedient for sparing life' whose use should not be prevented 'by the prejudices of those who do not think clearly'. Although the arm y had used gas shells against the M eso­ potam ian rebels in 1920 w ith 'excellent m oral effect' and 'tear sm oke' w as issued to certain Indian police units in the 1930s, gas bom bs were never dropped by British policing aircraft. Apart from the fear of hum anitarian objection, there were considerable practical obstacles to the discharge of gas from an aeroplane.20 The m assive display of imperial m ilitary m ight w as characteristic of the British Empire both in its ascendency and in its decline. Reviews of the fleet on occasions of royal celebration were intended not only to reinforce bonds of loyalty to the monarch, but to im press all manner of visiting foreign dignitaries. The solid presence of a battleship anchored

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in the offing, its huge guns silent but menacing, m ight cause potential rebels to reflect before they challenged imperial authority. During the com m unal riots of 1929, for instance, m ajor w arships were sent to Palestinian ports, less as a m eans of active repression than as an awesom e reminder of British power. A t the apogee of Egyptian nation­ alist agitation in 1936, m em bers of the indigenous elite were invited to w atch gunnery practice by five battleships of the M editerranean Fleet, followed by a parade of sailors through the streets of Alexandria. During the Partition of Africa, chieftains and their followers were assem bled and treated to displays of the novel power of the m achine gun, which w as used to cut im pressive sw athes through fields of standing crops or as an especially gruesom e method of public execution. When the Sudan government decided to break the power of the N uer prophets, the pyramid at Dengkurs w as partially dem olished by an explosive charge to strike an irreparable blow at G w ek's prestige by dam aging the m aterial m anifestation of his spritiual power. These dem onstrations of potential force were intended to reap the benefits of violence w ithout incurring the political cost of its lethal use. The Royal Air Force affirmed this tradition of imperial m ilitary display.21 Air dem onstrations could be either form al or informal. D isplays of the latter kind involved one or more aircraft flying over the territory of actual or potential dissidents, to remind them of the m ilitary power and the long arm of imperial government. D em onstrations were intended as a warning to tribesm en and it was therefore em phasized that they should be as im pressive as possible: where there w as room they were carried out by the m axim um number of available m achines flying together at low level; in very deep and narrow ravines or valleys they were flown by a constant succession of single aircraft or sm all form ations. T o add to the effect, aircrew were som etim es instructed to fire Very lights or sm oke signals, or to scatter written propaganda. In M ay 1924 Edward Ellington (the AO C India) criticized one of his subordinates for employing only a single flight of four aircraft in a dem onstration over M ahsud tribal sections on the Frontier. After 8 Squadron was transferred to Aden in 1927, the unit flew in full force over m ost areas of the Protectorate for a whole week, to advertise both to the Iman and to the tribesm en this accession of power. John Salm ond accepted that aircraft 'show ing the flag' could display the presence of central government, but w as anxious that the lavish use of dem onstration could sim ply nullify the effects of air power, although Trenchard was too politically astute to repeat this argum ent in debate. D isplays alone som etim es did fail to have m uch impact, for exam ple in M ay 1930 when flights by forty-two m achines over a tribal lashkar on the Frontier earned a defiant reply to government orders, which only bombing could enforce. It was, however, generally

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accepted that a nicely tim ed dem onstration of force could cause the half­ hearted to stand aside from an incipient rebellion, a tendency doubtless encouraged by an awareness that behind the apparently peaceful display lay the threat of destructive bombing.22 Air dem onstrations could, on occasion, be formal, alm ost theatrical events analogous to fleet reviews, to which indigenous peoples whom it was desired to im press would be invited to spectate while the air force exhibited its destructive potential. The im pressive accuracy of a bom b­ ing dem onstration, staged at Hinaidi in June 1924 in front of m ilitary forces, Iraqi officials and the local population, had a 'very m arked' effect upon the civilians, m ost of whom had never seen aeroplanes in action before. On the Frontier in 1931 advantage w as taken of the annual gathering of chiefs and headmen at G ilgit to display the capabilities of aircraft,- the political effect w as enough to justify tim ing a regular air force tour to coincide with this Durbar in future. The Air Staff claim ed that in the Sudan form al dem onstrations of air force power would im press tribesm en w ith the strength and ubiquity of British rule, and convince them 'that the Governm ent is more powerful than their own religious leaders or witch doctors'. In 1932 fifty N uer arrived in Khar­ toum by river steam er to w itness a display of formation flying, machine gunning and live bombing. They were sufficiently awed to ask why King George did not kill them all with his 'birds of death'. The D istrict C om m issioner replied that the King loved them, but that if they offended him again he w ould kill their cattle and destroy their villages. At this alarm ing intelligence the Nuer, unsurprisingly enough, 'seem ed m uch subdued'. Several sim ilar dem onstrations featured in the 1932 East African cruise, including one at Tanga aerodrome which w as w it­ nessed by enorm ous crowds. Other displays were carried out in the Aden Protectorate and during the Arab Revolt in Palestine. M ost of these formal dem onstrations occurred in the 1930s, when the techniques of air policing had become more refined, and they perhaps drew on the experience gained earlier at the annual Hendon display.23

Criticism s of air policing Because air policing w as swifter, more effective and (above all) cheaper than the conventional punitive colum n, ethical objections to the new m ethod offered the m ost prom ising angle of attack for its political opponents. The Air M inistry were certainly aware that they were vulnerable to this approach, but the m ost destructive effects of air policing could be partly concealed from its varied critics - physically as observers had less chance to w itness bombing than they did to accom ­ pany troops, and sem antically as details of hum an losses caused by the

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air force were edited out of published reports, to be replaced by pallid euphem ism s such as 'm oral effect'. Indeed Trenchard explicitly in­ structed John Salm ond not to report the details of bomb tonnage dropped or casualties caused during operations in Iraq, as the news 'that two tons of bom bs have been dropped on som e little village daily' m ight give, he darkly hinted, 'a wrong sense of proportion at hom e'. C ountless tim es the Air M inistry revealingly claim ed that air policing w as a 'hum ane and econom ical' form of control, as if the alleged hum anity of air force m ethods were unconvincing unless supported by a separate financial argument. Once air policing had becom e a live topic of controversy at the Geneva D isarm am ent Conference the Air M inistry paid particular attention to self-justification, and in N ovem ber 1933 asked the M iddle Eastern com m ands to provide fuller reports on the situations that had led up to bombing. Som e air force officers were sceptical of alleged hum anitarian objections to air policing. After the Governors of several East African territories had expressed som e disquiet at air force m eth­ ods, Arthur Harris claim ed they were suffering from an 'anti-bombing com plex' which he hoped would 'com e right in tim e'. The debates about the ethical statu s of air policing were not conducted in the spirit of abstract enquiry employed by moral philosophers when the hours lie heavy upon them, but expressed an underlying political battle between the services for the tangible rewards of funds, prestige and power.24 The Air M inistry, sensible of the ethical objections to air policing, som etim es tried to undermine their opponents by accusing them of blinkered reaction. The air force, founded only in 1918, w as by far the newest of the services, and its strategic principles and com m itm ent to advanced technology expressed a self-conscious modernity. Brian Bond, in his valuable study B ritish M ilita ry P o licy B etw een the T w o W orld W ars, has done much to rescue the army from the charges of horseobsession and 'blimpery' levelled at it by Liddell Hart, Fuller and other leading critics in the 1930s. But arm y officers, especially in India, were often reluctant to accept new ideas, a failing repeatedly em phasized by the supporters of air policing. Trenchard clearly believed that the notion of m odernity had enough appeal to be politically useful,* in October 1921 he claim ed that if only the services were 'prepared to m ove with the tim es and leave the ruts of an obsolete dogm atism ' then air control would be accepted. If the army could be vilified as reactionary, then their ethical objections to air policing could be brushed aside as selfish atavism . The Air Staff suggested that opposition to air policing stem m ed not from any inherent brutality, but from 'the novelty of a m ethod which disturbs conservative prejudices'. T h is observation no doubt held a grain of truth, but a few air force enthusiasts went too far. In August 1930, an article in the S u n d a y P icto ria l - titled 'G ive Our Youth its

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Wings' - suggested that arm y antagonism to air control on the Frontier reflected the 'ever recurrent clash between youth and senility' and recommended that the 'bow and arrow gentlemen' be 'pensioned off'. Such extreme and ill-informed statem ents by its supporters did the air force no political good at all.25 One criticism repeatedly levelled at the air force w as that the m eth­ ods of air policing inflicted hum an loss w ithout distinguishing the fighting m en of a tribe from their more peaceful dependants. By killing women and children, so the argum ent ran, the bomber would not only break the ethical rules of im perial policing but would create lasting and dangerous resentm ents am ongst the tribesmen, even if the latter were forced to a temporary subm ission. T h is strategy w as used in the debate over air control in M esopotam ia. In A ugust 1921 Worthington-Evans (the Secretary of State for War) claim ed that bom bs and m achine guns, 'the only weapons that can be used by the air force', could not reconcile tribesm en to 'civilized rule' since their sole m eans of inflicting punish­ m ent was to attack wom en and children. 'If the Arab population realize that the peaceful control of M esopotam ia ultim ately depends on our intention of bombing wom en and children, I am very doubtful if we shall gain that acquiesence of the fathers and husbands of M esopotam ia as a whole to which the Secretary of State for the Colonies looks forward.' T his com bination of ethical and pragm atic reasoning w as typical of Army objection to air policing. The frequent references to the killing of wom en and children, which Henry Wilson considered 'inadm issible within the confines of the Empire', also reflect prevailing attitudes towards wom en am ong the imperial elite. In N ovem ber 1936, for example, General Weir (the G O C Egypt) asked that the 8th H ussars be returned from Palestine as 'the married m en ought to be brought back to their wives and the officers to their polo ponies'. The im plicit com parison is very revealing.26 Some wom en and children were undoubtedly killed by police bom b­ ing. In the sum m er of 1921, for instance, the air force destroyed several villages in northern Iraq which had shelted rebels and Turkish soldiers. N o warnings appear to have been issued and in the village of Harir fifteen women and children were killed by bombs. Various argum ents were deployed by the air force to explain away these losses. In October 1923 Indian Air Headquarters adm itted that 'danger to non-combatants is inseparable from the use of the bomb' and suggested that air power should therefore not be used wantonly for fear of embittering the tribesmen, but this confession would have played into the hands of the opponents of air policing, had it been made public. An even less prom ising defence of air force m ethods was employed by Philip G am e (the AOC India) who suggested that since women were of very low statu s

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in Frontier society, being regarded as 'a piece of property somewhere between a rifle and a cow', their deaths could not reasonably be compared w ith those of European non-combatants. It w as more politi­ cally shrewd to claim that tribal wom en were com batants, since they som etim es took part in m ilitary operations (although no evidence w as ever produced to show that w om en participated in actual fighting). 'Where is the essential difference between the Afridi tribesm an and his w om enfolk who murder the wounded and m utilate the dead?' asked the Air Staff in February 1924. Although it was neither true nor ethically co­ herent, the air force also claim ed that, since warnings instructing tribes­ m en to remove wom en and children from villages were alw ays issued before bombing began - a policy castigated by Steel (the DCAS) as 'ludicrous' and 'squeam ish' but politically necessary - then it w as the tribesm en them selves who were responsible for any loss to non-combat­ ants. The m ost politically successful line of defence, however, w as to em phasize the brutality of traditional army m ethods. Artillery bom ­ bardment of populated areas alm ost inevitably led to non-combatant losses, while N orm an Bottom ley pointed out - in a paper called 'The Fallacies of "Inhum anity" and "R an co u r"' - that in Decem ber 1929 troops had opened fire w ith rifles and a m achine gun on rioting N igerian women, killing or m ortally wounding fifty-one. But not even Trenchard could think of a valid justification for killing children.27 A related ethical argum ent against air policing w as the charge that the bomber w as an indiscrim inate weapon which could not select between the innocent and guilty, but m ade all suffer alike. In M ay 1920 M aurice Hankey privately told the Prime M inister that 'the real difficulty in utilizing aircraft is that, from the air, they cannot distinguish friend from foe'. Hankey suggested that British public opinion m ight not tolerate a system of policing that incidentally killed those who were well disposed towards the Empire - he underestim ated the tolerance of the British public. Field M arshal M ilne (the CIGS) also argued that air power w as necessarily indiscrim inate. In February 1927 he claim ed that the British at Aden were not 'in occupation of an enem y country' and that bombers, unlike troops on the ground, could not create the condi­ tions for peaceful adm inistration through personal contact. M ilne accepted that aircraft could som etim es check the growth of a rebellion by striking hard during its early stages, but felt that air action could not distinguish the rebellious from the uncom m itted. 'T o attem pt to kill a party of natives, not all of whom can be singled out as rebels, seem s hardly a way to adm inister a country w ith justice and on British lines.' M ilne im plied that repressive air power departed from the traditional precept of 'm inim um necessary force' to embrace a doctrine of 'fright­ fulness' based upon indiscrim inate, exem plary and lethal violence.28

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The supporters of air policing replied in two different and contradic­ tory ways to this accusation: they either claim ed that the indiscrim inate nature of air policing was offset by its other advantages, or they claim ed that air action was selective. A s an example of the first, in February 1924 the-Colonfal Office adm itted that the RAF could not conduct policing operations 'except by m ethods that are necessarily som ew hat indiscrim inate' even if all possible precautions were taken, and regretted that 'incidents' which could be exploited by Parliament or the press were thereby created. Against this, they continued, the 'strikingly successful results' achieved by air power should be weighed. T his argum ent am ounted to a frank adm ission that the air force was crude but effective, and both its honesty and its w eakness perhaps reflect the unease felt by the Labour Colonial Secretary, J. H. Thom as, in employing the m ethods instituted by his predecessors.29 There w as more political advantage in suggestng that the air force w as a precise instrum ent. After operations on the Frontier in Novem ber 1928 the Resident in W aziristan m aintained that the bombers had picked out 'not only the villages of the guilty but the very houses of those m ost deeply concerned, leaving untouched the property of the welldisposed', a claim that w as repeated alm ost verbatim by the Air Staff before the C om m ittee of Imperial Defence in July 1930. The following year J. C. Slessor emphasized that 'precision bombing' now compared favourably in accuracy with long-range artillery fire, and that 'chuck it and chance it' aim ing w as a thing of the past. The ethical statu s of air policing partly depended on the technical questions of bombing accu­ racy and whether it could be proved that the air force w as not merely a weapon too blunt for internal security.30 The claim that the policing aircraft was a precise instrum ent is dem onstrably fabulous. The Air Staff suggested that the Frontier opera­ tions of Novem ber 1928 proved the air force could destroy selected houses while leaving the village in which they stood com pletely un­ touched: even the m ost cursory glance at the evidence shows this conclusion to be com pletely false. On 15 and 16 November, of 182 bom bs dropped on dissident areas, no less than 102 entirely m issed the target villages, still im pressive enough from 4,000 feet but hardly a rapier-thrust at the enemy vitals. Adm ittedly the 'very houses of those m ost deeply concerned' m ay have been demolished, but so were the hom es of num erous other people along with terraces in the surrounding hills, and the air force could count them selves lucky not to have hit friendly villages 500 yards from the aim ing points. The Air Staff were alm ost certainly aware of these facts when they made their spurious claim s. Selected houses could be destroyed, but only in low-altitude

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operations carefully executed by picked crews. In M arch 1932 the house of a leading Frontier dissident w as badly damaged while a revered tom b in a nearby building survived unscathed, but this accurate bombing w as only accom plished by a single highly skilled crew after nine separate sorties. Furthermore, these raids at low altitude were thought to be 'seldom justifiable' because of the risk from rifle fire. Form ation attacks were far less accurate; during the remainder of the M arch 1932 Frontier cam paign only about half of all bom bs dropped fell w ithin the confines of the target villages. The Bristol Fighters flown by several squadrons overseas could not achieve even these results, except from very low level, since they lacked bom bsights. Slessor even adm itted that the bombers som etim es attacked the wrong target altogether, but he re­ garded such episodes as 'regrettable accidents' that w ould happen 'whatever the form of force employed'. Air force bom bing w as no more precise than Air M inistry propaganda, and the 'surgical strike' w as no less a m yth over the Frontier in the 1920s and 1930s than it w as over Libya in 1986.31 If the air force were to strike selectively, even to the lim ited extent of bombing the right village, then accurate political intelligence w as essential. The speed and range of the bomber availed little, except perhaps to 'show the flag', unless it w as directed on the basis of reliable information. In the Aden hinterland slow com m unications and the occupation of som e areas by Zeidi troops com plicated the already vexing problem of distinguishing friendly villages from hostile ones. On the Frontier, m aps were inaccurate or contradictory and villages were often either wrongly nam ed or shared the sam e nam e w ith several others in the locality. During the Frontier operations of M arch 1932,1,000 square m iles of country w as surveyed from the air and alm ost 12,000 photo­ graphic prints issued. Aircrew received annotated photographs of the target before each m ission to ensure the wrong village w as not attacked, and close liaison between the m ilitary and the political authorities enabled a change of target at short notice.32 Another air force reply to the charge that its operations were indis­ crim inate w as to suggest that precision bom bing which punished only the guilty w as unnecessary, since tribal justice functioned on the basis of 'collective responsibility'. In October 1925 the government of India adm itted that both the well-disposed and the hostile m em bers of a tribe would suffer whether a cam paign were conducted by air or ground forces. But people who had com m itted no hostile act would, the government claimed, feel no sense of injustice or alienation if they were bombed since 'com m unal responsibility is the basis of Pathan society'. Edgar Ludlow-Hewitt (the A O C India) found it difficult to ensure 'good behaviour' sim ply by dispersing lashkars and thought it necessary to

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attack a whole tribe. T h is policy, which grew from the operational lim itations of air power, w as justified on the basis of 'tribal responsibil­ ity' by which the entire com m unity w as held answerable for the behaviour of its young fighting men. A sim ilar process can be identified in the relations between the Quteibi and the Aden government. The government w as anxious to m ake trade routes in the Protectorate more safe, but in spring 1934 several Quteibi looted a caravan. For purely m ilitary reasons it w as decided to hold the entire tribe responsible, for if the guilty sections alone were attacked they could seek shelter with their neighbours, but if the entire tribal area w as blockaded then serious econom ic disruption could not be avoided. The air force principle of 'collective responsibility' w as therefore an ethical argument, prem ised upon a particular view of tribal society, used to explain away certain m ilitary lim itations of air power.33 An entire tribe could legitim ately be held answerable for the m is­ deeds of its young fighting m en only if the rest of the tribe had the power to restrain the warriors and had chosen not to do so. But Charles Callw ell, one of the more perceptive com m entators on Frontier warfare, thought that the actions of the fighting m en were largely independent of the tribe, and therefore suggested that the surest way to enforce subm ission w as to inflict losses directly upon the warriors. It w as indeed doubtful whether 'collective responsibility' could be enforced upon the Frontier M ahsuds, owing to the nature of their political structures; power w as diffuse, the M aliks exercised little authority and the various sections had alm ost no control over each other. It w as British policy to bolster the power and prestige of the M aliks, but it would be som e tim e before this w as realized. During the winter of 1936-37 for example, various individual M ahsuds had raided and com m itted at least one murder, but the tribe had not declared openly against the government. The M ahsud M aliks professed their friendship, but plausibly claim ed they could neither control 'the more irresponsible younger elem ents' nor prevent the passage through their territory of hostile Afghan sub­ jects. Edward Ellington com plained that Political Officers in India liked to distinguish between hostile and friendly tribesmen: he preferred a bombing policy that targeted whole tribal areas and w as 'as bloodthirsty as possible'. Certainly tribal non-combatants som etim es helped and encouraged the warriors, but tribesm en could also act in sm all groups or from individual m otives. The air force principle of collective responsiblity did not fully recognize the com plexities of tribal society.34 The critics of air policing occasionally suggested that bombing m ight be regarded as brutal or unfair by tribesmen, who would therefore be provoked to atrocious retaliation. In the early 1920s the tribesm en of the Frontier som etim es attacked Indian and British w om en and children;

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som e opponents of air policing ascribed this to the resentm ent created when the air force killed tribal non-combatants. Philip G am e (the A O C India) rebutted this suggestion; he noted that attacks upon Indian civilians were an established feature of tribal raids which had 'no connection with air operations'. Since bombing w as now alw ays pre­ ceded by a warning, he continued, the tribesm en them selves were to blam e if their wom en and children were killed by the air force. Further­ more, the Indian government had even proposed sheltering tribal noncom batants in 'concentration cam ps' while their m enfolk were being bombed, although this generous policy w as never put into practise. The government of India later claim ed there w as no evidence that attacks on women and children could be attributed to resentm ent caused by air operations, and that, on the contrary, towards air force officers 'the M ahsuds showed a m arked respect based on adm iration for the work they do'. T h is last claim w as probably exaggerated, but there is very little evidence to show that Frontier tribesm en shared the view of som e conservative arm y officers that the bomber w as an unsporting weapon. Had they done so, then the lives of air force prisoners would have been at risk, but retaliation against even these captives appears to have been the exception rather than the rule.35 The air force could, with som e justice, defend their m ethods at least in a com parative sense, by pointing out that a m arch by a punitive colum n usually entailed more loss of life than a bombing campaign, to achieve a sim ilar political result. The brisk skirm ishes fought between the Indian Army and the Frontier tribesm en often resulted in several hundred deaths, far more than w as usual in air policing operations. N or was the hardship and loss of life inflicted by the arm y confined to the fighting m en for, in the absence of a focal point of resistance such as a monarch or capital, the troops often resorted to attacks upon the m eans of subsistence. N orm an Bottom ley cited a m ilitary order issued during the 1920 rebellion in M esopotam ia: Villages will be razed to the ground and all woodwork removed. Pressure will be brought on the inhabitants by cutting off water power and destroy­ ing water lifts; efforts to carry out cultivation will be interfered with, and the systematic collection of supplies of all kinds beyond our actual requirements will be carried out, the area being cleared of the necessaries of life. The arm y itself suffered far more losses than the air force from enem y action, as RAF apologists liked to point out. In the 1919 Kurdish rebellion, for example, 386 soldiers were killed, wounded or went m issing, while during the Iraq rebellion the follow ing year im perial losses had reached nearly 2,300 by November. The pattem w as sim ilar

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with regard to disease. During patrols in the Sudan from Decem ber 1927 to February 1928, the ground forces endured typhoid, m alaria, gastroen­ teritis and dysentry while the health of air force officers and men 'w as reported as excellent'.36 The need to defend the peaceful from the cruelties and exactions of the warlike w as a traditional pretext for imperial expansion that w as turned to novel use during the debates about air policing. The govern­ m ent of India justified the bombing of the transfrontier tribesm en by referring to the atrocities they com m itted during their raids, in which M ahsuds and Wazirs raped, murdered and abducted Hindus. 'What are the law s in this kind of cricket?' asked the Chief Com m issioner of the Frontier Province, Sir John Maffrey. Indian Air Headquarters suggested that the air force on the Frontier need not adhere to international law 'against savage tribes who do not conform to codes of civilized warfare'. Cruel the tribesm en m ay have been, but Trenchard surely went too far when he argued, in his m aiden speech to the Lords in April 1930, that 'they have no objection to being killed'. It is hard to see how bombing could have achieved a 'm oral effect' were this the case. The savagery of the Wahabi raiders is beyond dispute, and even John Bagot Glubb, no enemy of the nomads, supported the bombing of these cruel fanatics who 'religiously clipped their m oustaches but m assacred their fellow M uslim s'. But not all victim s of British bombers can be compared with the Wahabis. Many tribesm en of the Aden hinterland were bombed merely for refusing to give up their traditional right to extract tolls from travellers passing through their territory. Some m odem historians, however, still regurgitate the language of im perialism . Anthony C lay­ ton believes that the m ain threat to the policy of 'Peace on the Roads' in the Aden Protectorate was 'the decayed nature of the hinterland peoples, no longer self-respecting ethnic com m unities but groups of brigands m otivated sim ply by vendettas and love of pillage, robbing and killing in defiance of the local rulers'. T his is little more than a racist caricature. Robert Brooke-Popham even maintained, in a lecture delivered in December 1919, that a cannibal tribe, 'suffering from the effects of indigestion, caused by over-indulgence in m issionary', w as the usual target for police bombing - truly the apotheosis of the civilizing m ission. It can be stated with som e confidence, however, that the air force was never called upon to prevent tribesm en from eating m issionaries, or to punish them for having already done so.37 Som e air policing technology aroused criticism even am ong those who did not oppose the repressive use of air power in principle. When it w as found that tribesm en were evading prolonged blockades by return­ ing to their villages at night to carry out essential work, the use of delayed action bom bs to prevent this was proposed. The air force could

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sow a village by day w ith these bombs, which w ould not explode until night-time, thus continuing the blockade around the clock, but w ithout the need for risky night operations. The chief ethical objection to delayed-action bom bs w as the lack of warning they provided before exploding, although this could to som e extent *be remedied by leaflets instructing the tribesm en to avoid their villages even at night. In June 1923 Philip G am e (the A O C India) felt it unw ise to em ploy delayedaction bom bs as 'it is neither justifiable nor politic to be too brutal in our m ethods of control'. He noted that tribal children 'have a passion for playing with dud bom bs' and suggested that, if long delay fuzes were employed, one result would be 'blowing a lot of children to pieces'. D espite G am e's reservations, delayed action-bombs became a standard weapon of air policing, since they were too effective to be lightly eschewed. During the Barzan operations of 1932 in northern Kurdistan, delayed-action bom bs were used to prevent access to villages by night, although clear warnings were also issued by the air force. Interestingly Henry Dobbs (the former High C om m issioner for Iraq) seem s to have been unaware of their use, for in a letter to T h e T im e s in Septem ber 1932 he denied rum ours that they had been employed. 'I cannot believe that this is true, as it is quite contrary to the traditions of the Royal Air Force in Iraq.' Apparently the air force w as not as closely watched by the civil power as its apologists liked to claim .38 Air dem onstrations were used not only to overawe potential dissi­ dents overseas, but as a form of propaganda to justify the m ethods of air policing to the British public at home. Of the dom estic displays by far the m ost fam ous w as the Hendon Pageant, the annual air force tournam ent intended to m ake the British population more 'air minded'. The first display, watched by 40,000 spectators, took place in 1920, and the crowds grew steadily until by 1932 no less than 170,000 were adm itted to the enclosures besides several hundred thousand m ore who watched free from outside. These figures were im pressive, and bear w itness to a growing interest in aviation, even if one denies the claim , m ade by Fligh t m agazine in 1927, that the Pageant now outshadowed A scot as a social event. Hendon w as attended not only by thousands of the general public, but by British and foreign monarchs, Indian princes and leading air figures (such as M arshal Balbo in 1927). The spectators were treated to displays of form ation flying or 'air drill', som etim es set to popular tunes; to bombing dem onstrations, air races, individual aerobatics and m ock battles between fighters and bombers; to parachute descents and clim b­ ing races; and m ost notably of all, to the celebrated 'parade of new types' which was watched with fascination by all those interested in the latest weaponry. But the Hendon Pageant w as not merely entertainm ent, for beneath the outward resem blance to a flying circus there lay a serious

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m ilitary and political purpose. The displays were intended to m ake the newest service fam iliar to the public, and to illustrate its fighting m ethods - thus from 1929 the aircraft trailed coloured sm oke to allow their m anoeuvres to be more closely followed. Above all the Hendon Pageant w as an event of im perial propaganda, intended to illustrate the importance of air power to the Empire.39 The culm ination of the Hendon Pageant w as a set piece 'attack' which illustrated an aspect of air force work. Those of 1920 and 1921 had drawn their inspiration from the Great War, but in 1922 an im perial theme w as directly introduced when an 'Eastern D ram a' involving the attack and destruction of a desert stronghold w as played. A fort whose towers rose to 100 feet w as erected from the wings of obsolete m achines, and this w as defended by a tribe of airmen, suitably dressed and blackened, known as 'W ottnotts'. Forced landings, emergency repairs and armoured cars all featured but the finale w as the spectacular destruction of the fort by incendiary bombing. In 1927 a sim ilar scene was enacted, this tim e involving the rescue of a party of European women and children from the inhabitants of the village of 'Hunyadi Janos in Irquestine'. The display included the dropping of supplies by parachute and the m ovem ent of troops by air, as well as the usual bombing. At this stage the air force clearly felt little need to disguise the hum an losses caused by its operations, for the attacks were directed 'on the village and natives'. When the plans for the display leaked out, there were som e protests, but these do not appear to have brought about any change in the programme. Flig h t m agazine spoke with undisguised contem pt of the 'tenderhearted crowd' who objected to the form of the display, and went on to suggest that 'aged and converted cannibals still look back with pathetic longings on the exquisite flavour of fricasseed m issionary'. At this stage a m im e of lethally destructive air policing w as still considered suitable entertainm ent for a public gathering and w as justified by the m ost hackneyed imperial propaganda.40 These stereotypes did not long survive the changing international atm osphere after the preparations for the Geneva D isarm am ent Confer­ ence began in 1928. The efforts that were being m ade to abolish the bomber as a weapon of war com pelled the air force to alter its display programme to m ake it more ideologically palatable. In 1930 the 'set piece' again drew upon air policing but this tim e the victim s of the bomber were not 'natives' but 'pirates' who had seized a ship and murdered a planter and his wife. The change w as deliberately instituted 'to obviate the criticism s of pacifists' who, it w as thought, could not object to the incineration of pirates. The 1930 Pageant w as the last occasion on which the Hendon 'set piece' m im icked imperial policing. Air policing w as widely seen as an obstacle to air disarm am ent and it w as

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perhaps thought im politic to draw too m uch public attention to this aspect of air force* work. 'D esert C olum ns' and 'm arauding bands' still featured in the Pageant, but were given a lower profile than before. The Pageant itself cam e under som e criticism and there were sm all Peace Army protests at the 1932 display. Flig h t magazine, however, lam ented the dem ise of the imperial set piece. 'Personally we were m uch more excited when our aircraft swooped down upon hordes of many-coloured "W ott K n otts" scattering them in all directions, and then blowing everyth in g up with terrific bangs.' Once H itler had com e to power in Germ any and European rearm am ent began, the Hendon programme, like British diplomacy, w as enacted under the 'Shadow of the Bomber'. In 1936, for example, the set piece w as a war between Northland and Southland which m ust have struck a som ew hat om inous note the year after Hitler publicly adm itted the existence of the Luftwaffe.41 One possible reply to the critics of air policing w as sim ply to change the subject. 'A ir forces primarily m aintained for defence duties', the Air Staff pointed out, 'can also render num erous valuable services of a non­ m ilitary or hum anitarian nature'. The list of these w as im pressive, indeed so im pressive that one m ight alm ost forget that bombers existed primarily to kill people. Aircraft could rapidly fly sick or injured civilians to hospital, and in several cases undoubtedly saved lives. In February 1922, for example, a seriously wounded sheikh w as flown from the Syrian D esert to hospital where he rapidly recovered. In 1936 Freya Stark w as taken by air from the Hadram awt were she had been ill for several weeks, and she w as so grateful that she dedicated the book about her adventures to the Royal Air Force, 'who made the writing of it possible by carrying m e to safety from Shibam '. Aerial photography w as used not merely to plan bombing raids, but also to survey sites of archeo­ logical interest, a service which earned warm gratitude from the T ru s­ tees of the British M useum . W ing-Commander Sm ythies noted that civilization 'm ight never have arisen' w ithout com m unication, and compared the im perial air routes of 1930 to the roads of Rom an antiquity. Air com m unications could reduce poverty and spread techni­ cal skill, and thus 'the air route to India', he continued, 'has a definite ethical value, even though it w as inaugurated and is subsidized for strategical reasons'. Air force m achines also served in locust control, flood warning and fishery protection duties, carried serum to outlying districts and flew m edical team s to earthquake zones. The fact that the bomber could incidentally help in the control of insect pests did not, of course, provide the slightest justification for killing tribesmen, but the change of subject did at least have the political m erit of confusing the issue.42 Interestingly Churchill, the original author of the air control schem e,

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w as also one of the severest critics of the indiscrim inate use of air power. In March 1921 Geoffrey Salm ond (the AO C M iddle East) noted that the m ain political problem in Transjordan w as the non-payment of taxes. Aircraft were used m ainly to enforce the collection of revenue, but the High C om m issioner w as anxious that bombing for this purpose should not result in loss of life. In June the sam e year, however, Churchill learned that air action had been taken on the Lower Euphrates to press­ ure certain villages into paying their taxes. 'Aerial action' - he protested to Percy Cox, the High C om m issioner for Iraq - 'should in no circum ­ stances be employed in support of purely adm inistrative m easures such as the collection of revenue'. C ox defended the bombing, and claim ed it had been undertaken to disperse 'a deliberate attem pt to defy national Governm ent'. Churchill remained sceptical, and his anger w as again aroused by a report of an attack in Iraq, during which 'the tribesm en and their fam ilies ran into the lake, m aking a good target for the machine guns'. T his w as too m uch for Churchill, who protested to Trenchard that 'to fire w ilfully on wom en and children taking refuge in a lake is a dis­ graceful act, and I am surprised you do not order the officers responsible for it to be tried by court m artial.. .By doing such things we put ourselves on the lowest level.' Other leading public figures shared this disquiet. Curzon, for example, remained unconvinced that there w as any real difference between bombing people for refusing to pay taxes, and bom bing them for refusing to appear when sum m oned to explain non­ payment. These protests seem to have done som ething to lim it the violence of air policing after the early 1920s, but bombing to enforce paym ent of taxes appears to have continued. As John Salm ond confided to his diary about one operation in Iraq in M ay 1923, 'indirectly this adm its the charge of bombing for revenue, but a challenge to Govern­ m ent cannot well be ignored in a turbulent country such as this'.43 A slightly more system atic enquiry into air policing m ethods began in 1924 when the first Labour government took office. Trenchard w as not especially alarm ed at the prospect. 'I personally do not think this is the end of all things as som e apparently do.' In February the new Colonial Secretary (J. H. Thom as) noted that there had been parliam en­ tary criticism of the heavy casualties inflicted by som e policing opera­ tions, and asked the High C om m issioner for Iraq to produce a 'consid­ ered statem ent' on bombing policy in that country. In particular T ho­ m as w as anxious to find an alternative form of air policing which avoided 'actual resort to bombing', a hopeless quest which neatly illustrates one of the central dilem m as of reformism. Henry Dobbs (the High Com m issioner) replied that the 'terror of the Air' saved more lives than it cost by preventing violent tribal raids. He em phasized that it w as hoped to rely more upon the Iraqi Army in future, but the bomber

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remained the only m eans of suppressing distant outbreaks which m ight otherwise threaten the policy of the government and the lives of British subjects. John Salm ond (the AO C Iraq) claim ed that air action w as never taken without the closest consultation with the civil authorities, and that, because aircraft relied m ainly upon m oral effect, 'the casualties inflicted have been m ost remarkably sm all'. T h is reassurance seem s to have tem porarily silenced the doubting voices of the Labour govern­ m ent and of parliam entary critics, and bombing policy w as not signifi­ cantly changed. The Labour Party w as too concerned w ith clinging to power in the face of vicious press attacks to begin a serious review of air control, and besides, as Thom as him self noted, 'the Labour Party in this country is...strictly im perialist'.44 Far more alarm ing to the air force were the occasional com plaints from within its own ranks. Lionel Charlton, who becam e Senior Air Staff Officer in Iraq in 1923, w as a former arm y officer w ith a distin­ guished record in South Africa, the Royal West African Frontier Force and the Great War. Trenchard thought highly enough of his talents to contem plate prom oting him to com m and in India, even though this would have m eant superseding m any others. Charlton's disenchant­ m ent w ith air policing began when he travelled to Diwaniya, visited the local hospital, and saw the victim s of British bombers recovering from their injuries. He confided his doubts to John Salm ond (the AO C Iraq) but this merely strained the personal relationship between the two men. Charlton's m ain objections to bombing were typical of its critics - air attack w as necessarily indiscrim inate, it killed w om en and children, and too little warning w as given before the resort to violence. T or­ m ented by conflicting desires to repudiate the m ethods of air policing and to continue a successful air force career, Charlton w as in the end overcome by his conscience and he asked to be relieved of his post. He w as treated leniently. Trenchard recalled him to England on the pretext of reporting on prospective reductions in the Iraq garrison, listened carefully to his com plaints and told him he could continue his air force career provided he did not serve again in the m andated territories. Charlton did not at first m ake his protest public as he felt that honour w as satisfied by the resignation of his post in Iraq. He later served in the Air M inistry, but was deeply disappointed when the air force reneged on their prom ise about his career and placed him on the retired list in 1928.45 Charlton was, however, by no m eans a typical air force officer. A Catholic, and later a closet socialist, he displayed unusual intellectual interests, reading U ly sse s and T h e D e c a y o f C a p ita h st C iv iliza tio n during his voyage to Iraq, and preferring Proust to bloodsports while he w as there. H is m em oirs took the form of an autobiographical novel

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whose lyrical tone is in m arked contrast to the rollicking rem iniscences of m ost air force officers. He never married and after his retirem ent set up house w ith a young m an in Surrey where he wrote not only his m em oirs but several other books about air power. N evertheless, som e more conventional officers also expressed doubts about the repressive task s they were called upon to perform. Trenchard com plained to John Salm ond that som e officers in Iraq were discussing the polical aspects of bom bing policy and raising questions about its alleged brutality. Trenchard w as confident that Salm ond w as carrying out the policy as laid down by the Air Staff, but asked for an explanatory letter w ith which he could answer possible parliam entary criticism . The ethics of bom b­ ing policy appear to have been a popular topic of conversation at Iraq Air Headquarters. Air Com m odore Hearson, who replaced Charlton, ju sti­ fied the bombing of villages in term s of the higher good of the com m u­ nity, which those who suffered pain would ultim ately recognise 'either in this world or the next', for 'if I were to allow m yself to consider the m atter in the light of sentim ent I could never carry it through'. Arthur Lee recalls that m ost officers in Iraq felt uncomfortable about bombing the Kurds, whose 'crim e w as merely to be rebels against the Iraqi Governm ent', whereas the air attacks upon the brutal Ikhwan raiders were carried out w ith a sense of satisfaction and justice. D espite this uncertainty, no one else appears to have followed Charlton's example and resigned.46 The sm all scale of active opposition to police bombing from within the air force needs to be explained. It would have been easy for a few pilots to bring bom bing operations to a halt had they been inclined to do so; but it is perhaps precisely because they were so few that they were not disposed towards political dissidence. Trenchard conceived the air force from the outset as a sm all but elite body, and ideological control could be more easily m aintained over a com pact volunteer force than over a large conscript one. Furthermore, m ost rankers in all three services were of proletarian origin, while officers were from middle- or upper-class backgrounds. In the army alm ost all the fighting was done by the rank and file, supervised and m anaged by their officers: in the air force the aircraft were usually flown by the junior officers them selves. The ranks serviced, armed and fuelled the aeroplanes on the ground. T hus the individuals who had to carry out attacks upon tribal dissidents were drawn m ainly from those social classes who were least likely to actively question the repressive functions they were asked to perform. Technology is also important. Bombing, by its very nature, placed a technical distance between the act of violence and its effects on hum an beings. T h is technical distance could becom e an em otional one. It is no doubt significant that Charlton, a Staff Officer, only began to doubt the

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ethical validity of police bombing after he had been to a hospital and seen som e injured survivors of British attack. M ost officers would riot have been required to do this, or would not have taken the opportunity to do so had it been available to them. The existence of any dissent in a professional and technological armed service during peacetim e is per­ haps surprising. The issue of m edals as rewards and recognition is one barom eter of official attitudes to policing work. Soldiers who took part in imperial frontier operations were usually awarded a General Service M edal 'in com m em oration of arduous cam paigns and well-fought and w ell-sus­ tained battles and sieges', according to the words of the Royal Warrant. In 1929 Sam uel Hoare proposed that the medal be awarded to those mem bers of the air force who had taken part in operations against Ikhwan raiders between Novem ber 1927 and May 1928. The War Office firm ly opposed this suggestion; they argued that such an award would debase the General Service Medal, as there had been only one British death in action during the entire campaign. Hoare im m ediately seized upon this point to m ake a broader defence of air force m ethods which, he claimed, made the greatest possible use of m echanization to lessen the loss of hum an life in warfare. The forces engaged in sm all wars should not be made to feel that their efforts were worthy of reward only in proportion to the loss of life they had suffered. Moreover, a medal had been awarded to units engaged in Nigeria in 1906, despite the lack of deaths in action. The Cabinet appointed a com m ittee to investigate the m atter, and this unanim ously recommmended the award, em phasizing that the wording of the Royal Warrant should not be narrowly inter­ preted. Although the issue of a General Service M edal w as in itself a m inor question, the preceding debates uncover differing attitudes to technical innovation, while the approval of the award suggests that by the later 1920s air policing w as more widely accepted by the m akers of British policy.47

Air policing and air disarm am ent Air policing encountered its m ost vigorous and widespread ethical opposition during the early 1930s when the Geneva D isarm am ent Conference questioned the legitim acy of all aerial bombing. For a tim e it seem ed that the bomber m ight be outlaw ed by international agree­ ment; when this hope w as disappointed, the insistence of the British on retaining police bombing in the Empire w as widely blam ed for the failure to achieve a treaty often seen as vital to the security of European cities in wartime. When the Foreign Office representative defended police bombing at Geneva in 1933, George Lansbury referred to his

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speech as 'a scandal on the lips of an Englishm an'. Lansbury w as not alone in regarding air policing as an obstacle to international disarm a­ m ent: som e m odem historians agree w ith him . Victor Kieman, for example, clearly states that the British negotiators refused to renounce police bombing and im plies that it w as this refusal above all which prevented the abolition of the bomber. K iem an's argument, based upon factual error, is a m isleading sim plification of a com plicated process. T h is brief section unravels som e of the relationship between air policing and the failure of air disarm am ent.48 Ever since the m ilitary applications of aviation were first discovered efforts had been made to curb their destructiveness, a task which acquired a special urgency after the Great War during which air attacks had been m ade on the civil populations of various European cities - m ost notably London. A t the W ashington N aval Conference of 1921-22 a subcom m ittee tried to establish rules governing the use of aircraft in war. They did not succeed, but the five powers represented at the Conference agreed that a com m ission of experts should prepare a body of regulations. Convened at The Hague in Decem ber 1922, the Special C om m ission of Jurists had, by February 1923, agreed a series of rules governing the m ilitary use of aircraft, intended to avoid unrestricted violence and prohibit the terrorist bombing of the civilian population. The representatives of six powers accepted the recom m endations, but as the delegates were experts rather than plenipotentaries their signatures did not bind their respective governments, who were merely advised to ratify the agreement. Both Japan and the United States were w illing to do so, but Britain, France, Italy and The Netherlands m ade repeated excuses, causing the United States to abandon its attem pts to secure ratification in 1928. By the tim e preparations began for the D isarm a­ m ent Conference in Geneva there w as already a history of unsuccessful attem pts to control aerial warfare by international legislation.49 The D isarm am ent Conference finally opened in February 1932. The British Foreign Secretary, Sir John Simon, claim ed in his first speech at Geneva that 'arm am ents are the sym ptom of a pathological condition'. If this were so then the Conference proved an ineffectual treatm ent. All powers agreed that som ething had to be done to reduce or elim inate the risk of terror bombing from the air, and their various initial proposals included the abolition of m ilitary air forces, the prohibition of bombing, the lim itation of aircraft numbers by international agreement and placing civil aviation under an international authority. The British government, broadly sym pathetic to the control of aerial warfare, knew that its own public expected som e far-reaching and enduring agreement to emerge from the Conference; but there were om inous practical difficulties in the way of all the proposals, even assum ing each party

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acted in good faith. D espite these doubts the British delegation at first sought the prohibition of all bombing against the territory or shipping of another sovereign state, a form ula which, if adhered to by letter rather than in spirit, would have allow ed air policing to continue. British policy m akers were continually tom between a need to protect London (the m ost vulnerable target in Europe) from air attack by the prohibition of bombing, and a conflicting desire to save money by policing the m an­ dated territories with aircraft. By the sum m er of 1932 both the A dm i­ ralty and the War Office conceded that Britain had m uch to gain from the abolition of all air forces, and in June the Cabinet decided to support such a proposal, provided only that air policing could som ehow be retained. Both the French and the Am erican representatives were at first prepared to exclude im perial security from any lim iting agreement. Whatever their reservations, the Cabinet were anxious that Britain should not appear the sole objector to an aerial convention, but by the autum n of 1932 the whole Conference w as running into difficulties over m atters not directly connected with aviation. T o salvage som ething from the Conference, w ithout sacrificing the im perial role of the Royal Air Force, the British delegation proposed in M arch 1933 that all bom bing be outlaw ed with a view to the eventual abolition of all m ilitary aircraft except those m achines required 'for police purposes in certain outlying regions'.50 The evolution of British air disarm am ent policy reflected not merely the dynam ics of the Conference, but also the progress of a debate between the various sections of British and im perial officialdom. The Air M inistry, understandably enough, set itself firm ly against the abolition of air forces and the Air M inister, Lord Londonderry, w as a consistent opponent of the more sweeping disarm am ent proposals. He advised that any international agreement, whether to abolish all m ili­ tary aviation or to prohibit bombing, w ould not be observed under the pressure of war. Furthermore he suggested that air power w as essential for the cheap policing of the Empire: the abolition of the bomber would require an expensive increase in im perial garrisons. The Air Staff deployed sim ilar argum ents and em phasized that the abolition of m ilitary air power would sacrifice the m ost effective m eans of control­ ling dissident tribesmen. It w as even suggested that the uncertain future of the bomber had lowered the m orale of the Royal Air Force. A s an independent m em ber of the League of N ations, India sent a separate delegation to the D isarm am ent Conference. Although the Indian gov­ ernment had often doubted the more extrem e statem ents m ade by the air policing enthusiasts, air power now had an established role on the Frontier which the Indian authorities were m ost reluctant to sacrifice. Sir Francis Hum phries (the British A m bassador to Iraq) also em phasized

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that the Royal Air Force w as needed in Iraq to underpin the British alliance with that state.51 These various pressures from within the policy-m aking body no doubt helped to form the police bombing reservation. This, however, had a very poor reception when discussed by the Conference in M ay 1933, being condemned by all except the Iraqi and Persian delegates, and the representatives of the United States m ade a 'strong appeal' to the British to reconsider their position. British insistence on retaining air forces to police the Empire earned m uch hostility from the other delegates, and threatened to drain the reservoir of good w ill which the British had built up during the Conference; but a m eeting of M inisters had earlier decided that it w as 'essential for us to retain the reservation... perm itting police bombing in outlying regions'. The question certainly appeared to be the final blow to a comprehensive treaty for air disarm a­ ment, but this im pression is m isleading, for the Conference had failed in its essentials long before air policing became a contentious issue.S2 Air policing aside, there were formidable practical obstacles to any programme for air disarm am ent. From the outset it w as hard to establish valid criteria by which the relative power of existing air forces could be measured. The absolute number of m achines was perhaps the m ost obvious yardstick, but this crude sum ignored the baffling com plexities of different weights, performance and arm ament, besides the m atter of deciding which m achines were front-line and which were reserve. A financial lim it w as proposed, but it w as found im possible to compare the expense of different national air forces, given fluctuating exchange rates, diverse m ethods of accounting and the varying costs of a force raised by voluntary enlistm ent and one levied through conscription. There were attem pts to distinguish 'offensive' bombing aircraft, which could be employed for aggressive purposes, from 'defensive' m achines intended only to protect hom e air space. These foundered on the argum ent that even bombers could be employed 'defensively', for exam ple against in­ vading colum ns on friendly soil, besides the obvious objection that all aircraft could be converted to carry bom bs in emergency. The m ost persistent obstacle to the abolition of all m ilitary air forces was, however, the problem of civil aviation. If all air forces were abolished, so the argum ent ran, upon the outbreak of a European war all civil aircraft would be requisitioned by the m ilitary and pressed into service as bombers. T h is w as no idle fantasy as was proved during the early stages of the Spanish C ivil War when both sides im pressed converted airliners pending the arrival of more m odem types. Furthermore, many of the bombers used during the N azi Blitzkrieg were sm oothly to m ake the transition from Lufthansa to Luftwaffe.53 The political obstacles to air disarm am ent were still less surm ount­

I M P E R IA L P O L I T I C S AN D THE ROLE OF FO R CE

able than the technical problem s. After their victory in the G reat War, the Western powers had forbidden Germ any to possess m ilitary aircraft, subm arines, large naval units or an arm y of more than 100,000 volun­ teers. Other powers were bound by the Covenant of the League of N ations to reduce their own arsenals to the low est possible point consistent with national safety, and the D isarm am ent Conference w as intended to help realize this end. But a state as large and strong as Germ any could not be expected to endure this institutional im balance forever, especially if France and Britain were not prepared to act together to uphold the Treaty of Versailles. A s early as M arch 1932 it w as clear to the British government that argum ent w as 'inevitable'. The French, anxious for the safety of their Eastern frontier, were reluctant to sign any disarm am ent convention which released Germ any from the m ilitary clauses of the V ersailles treaty: the Germ ans, for their part, were unw illing to adhere to any treaty which did not im pose the sam e lim its upon all signatories. In August 1932 the G erm ans demanded G le ic h ­ berechtigung - equality of rights - and threatened to withdraw from the Conference unless this demand were met. Their threat was m ade real in September. In the interests of 'general appeasem ent' the Cabinet w as prepared to concede G leich b erech tig u n g , and the G erm ans were at length persuaded to resum e their places at the Conference. The resum p­ tion of talks was, however, only temporary, as the clash of interests between France and Germ any prevented any lasting com prom ise, and the G erm ans finally withdrew from the Conference shortly after Hitler cam e to power. Faced with m ounting criticism in Parliam ent over police bombing, the Cabinet decided in June 1933 'to bring out that it w as the m ajor differences between France and Germ any that were holding up the Conference: and that compared with these, the question of Police Bombing w as a side issue'.54

Conclusion The doctrine of 'm inim um necessary force', which ostensibly governed the policing of the British Empire, w as not intended to preserve the lives of imperial subjects, but to secure the power of their British m asters. M assacres could be harmful, not only for those who were m assacred, but for the authority and prestige of the ruling elite. But it w as not obvious from the outset whether the violence of the policing aircraft could be contained by this traditional doctrine. Some air officers at first claim ed that excessive initial violence would produce a 'm oral effect' so great that further dissidence would not occur, and it does appear that som e air operations were intended to cause the m axim um loss of hum an life, particularly in the Sudan. The bomber w as more destructive even than

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artillery, but as the m ethods of air policing becam e more established, efforts were made to cürb their destructiveness and apply the doctrine of 'm inim um necessary force'. Leaflet and loudspeaker warnings were som etim es used to avoid the deliberate loss of hum an life. Techniques of econom ic blockade and econom ic warfare were developed, although these tended to aggravate the conditions that had produced tribal dissidence in the first place, and could them selves lead to great suffering. In general, policing aircraft were not employed against urban rioters, which posed a particular problem in Palestine where the com m unal unrest w as concentrated in cities. Winston Churchill repeatedly advised the use of non-lethal gases as a m eans of lim iting the violence of the bomber but his suggestions were not heeded, for political and technical reasons. Formal and informal air dem onstrations were also carried out to overawe potential dissidents without causing loss of life. Although som e air officers relished the loss of life caused by bombing, the efforts to restrain the violence of police bom bing were, for the m ost part, conscientiously carried out: if they overstepped the lim its of 'm inim um necessary force' the fault lies less in the intentions of the actors than in the intrinsic destructiveness of the bomber. The Air M inistry w as sensitive to the charge that air policing w as brutal, and Trenchard therefore preferred the reports about casualties to be expressed in vague or euphem istic language. The War Office at­ tem pted to m ake political capital out of ethical questions and on balance the Air M inistry seem s to have had the worst of the argument. Bombing was necessarily indiscrim inate and the Air M inistry claim that the bomber w as a precision weapon is dem onstrably false. N or w as it justified to suggest that indiscrim inate bombing over a whole tribal area w as m ade legitim ate by the principle of 'collective responsibility'. The supporters of police bombing pointed out that army m ethods were them selves often very brutal and suggested, with som e reason, that War Office objections to bombing stem m ed more from selfish conservatism than from any genuine hum anitarian concerns. The Air M inistry also attem pted to justify its m ethods by em phasizing the undoubted sav­ agery of the Ikhwan raiders, or by falsely suggesting that m ost victim s of bom bing were cannibals. The annual aerial pageant at Hendon w as also exploited as a vehicle of imperial propaganda, m ock bombing of 'native villages' being carried out for the edification of the public; these displays seem to have achieved their poltical object during the 1920s but after air policing becam e a contentious issue at the Geneva D isarm a­ m ent Conference they were given a lower profile. Churchill, the original author of the air control scheme, was a keen critic of 'bom bing for taxes'; and the efforts of the 1924 Labour government to curb the violence of police bom bing in Iraq m et with som e lim ited success. There were criti­

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cism s from w ithin the ranks of the RAF, which Trenchard found disturbing. But these ethical doubts do not seem to have had any im portant m aterial effects, and if tribesm en were to survive bombing they were w iser to trust to their own efforts than to hope for unofficial com passion from their enem ies.

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CHAPTER NINE

Comparisons

The practice of air policing w as by no m eans confined to the British Empire. The other European powers all m aintained air forces in their overseas dom inions and their bombers were used against those who actively challenged colonial power. But police bombing w as an aspect not merely of formal colonial dom ination: it also featured in less formal patterns of political control. British bombers were used during the m andate period in Iraq to suppress Kurdish rebels in the m ountain fringes of that state, but after independence in 1932 the role of the Royal Air Force w as taken over by Iraqi squadrons. The transition from m andate to full sovereignty little affected the patterns of rebellion and repression in the highlands of Kurdistan. The white dom inions of South Africa and New Zealand also used aircraft to further their subim perial interests in N am ibia and Western Samoa. Police bombing w as widely employed but this is not in itself rem ark­ able. Sim ilar problem s often independently give rise to sim ilar solu­ tions, and the structural tensions of colonial dom ination produced related patterns of conquest and control. Repressive air power could extend and strengthen the arm of government for a com paratively sm all outlay, and it seem ed to offer a m eans of striking at rebels without risk of reply - hence its widespread appeal. But there were also important differences between the policies adopted in the British Empire and those employed elsewhere. The sim ilarities and the differences need to be explained. In this chapter the air policing m ethods practised by som e other states are exam ined and compared with British techniques of colonial control. The first section of the chapter takes the Rif war in M orocco and the Druze revolt in Syria as its m ain exam ples. The second section deals with the Italian Empire in Africa, its chief concerns being the war of reconquest in Libya and the invasion of Abyssinia.

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COMPARISONS

Air power in Morocco and Syria Spanish im perialism in M orocco had a violent history long before the Treaty of Fez of M arch 1912 gave France a legal protectorate over the entire country. A Franco-Spanish agreement later the sam e year defined spheres of influence, creating a Spanish zone along the northern littoral and a French zone, twenty tim es as large, in the south. The m ainly Berber population of the Rif m ountains, under nom inal Spanish control, were traditionally im patient of central government; and their defiance w as sustained by difficult terrain and extrem es of clim ate. By 1919 Spanish authority w as confined to a few urban enclaves. Spanish forces brought further territory under their control in 1920, but a Rifian rebellion which began in 1921 under the leadership of Abd el Krim annulled even these lim ited gains. The rebels heavily defeated the poorly equipped Spanish Army at Annual in July, gained control of the hinterland and established a Rifian state. The Spanish were beaten further back in 1924, and by January the follow ing year the rebels were at the height of their power.1 The widespread Spanish em ploym ent of repressive air power in the M oroccan war w as not alw ays successful. A com m ission which inves­ tigated the Annual disaster concluded that one of the four m ain causes of the defeat w as the gross incom petence of the Spanish Air Force. Spanish bombs, aim ed rather w ildly at rebel positions near the frontier, often fell in the Tangier international zone. The air force, perhaps more ruthless than skilful, took reprisals against the hom elands of tribes who joined the rebels and m ade lavish use of poison gas. The Spanish claim ed that they alw ays scattered warning leaflets in Arabic and Tam azight (a M oroccan Berber language) before bombing began, but like the British they often dispensed w ith such preparation. Aircraft dropped food and water, in the form of bags of ice, to beleaguered garrisons. Air reinforce­ m ents were sent to com bat further Rif attacks in 1924 and the am phibi­ ous landings near Alhucem as Bay in Septem ber 1925 were closely supported by eighty eight land based and twelve w ater based m achines, using gas and high explosive bom bs.2 Abd el Krim did not want to carry the war into the French zone of Morocco. The Berber tribesm en of the Rif m ountains had little in com m on with the more Arabized tribes to the south, and Krim w as too conscious of French m ilitary power to seek confrontation. The Rifs, however, depended upon the harvests of the Beni Zerwal, a tribe in the Spanish zone adm inistered by the French. Abd el Krim decided reluc­ tantly upon war with France, only after the French - who perceived the

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Rif state as a potential threat - began to fortify the Beni Zerwal territory. The power of the Rif attacks in April 1925 surprised the French, who were forced to give ground, but this rebel success prompted m uch closer Franco-Spanish co-operation. Their troops joined forces in August 1925 and a general offensive in Septem ber regained m uch of the lost territory. D esultory negotiations had taken place w ithout conclusion since the sum m er of 1925, but a m ajor Spanish victory in M ay 1926 induced Abd el Krim to surrender. The loss of this m ost charism atic leader m arked the effective end of the rebellion, although fighting continued on a sm all scale into the sum m er.3 The French relied upon ground rather than air forces to suppress the rebellion. They deployed large numbers of soldiers in M orocco - by the end of July 1925 the infantry had been reinforced to sixty battalions and in M arch the follow ing year no less than eighty five battalions, organized in six divisions, were in the country. Air cover w as at first provided by the eighty aircraft of the 37 th Régim ent d'Aviation, six of whose ten squadrons were initially deployed against the rebels. Reinforcements from Algeria, T unisia and France brought the total up to twenty-two squadrons, w ith a front-line establishm ent of around 160 m achines, by early autum n 1925. A central aircraft park included extensive facilities for supply, repair, m aintenance, building, transport, training and plan­ ning. M ost French squadrons in M orocco were equipped with the Breguet 14 A2, a rugged and reliable m achine of Great War vintage, whose m ain shortcom ing w as its sm all bomb load.4 The m ilitary threat to the m ountainous northern frontier of French M orocco w as sim ilar to that confronted by John Salm ond shortly after he assum ed com m and in Iraq; but M arshal Lyautey, who com m anded the French troops in M orocco until replaced by Pétain, proved more reluctant than Salm ond to allot the air force an independent role. Lyautey knew as early as Decem ber 1924 that the Rifs would probably attack som e tim e the following spring, yet unlike Salm ond he made little effort to concentrate his bombers to anticipate the hostile advance. Before they could reach the French front line the Rif troops had to cross about thirty m iles of ground, but the French did not attem pt to disrupt their progress by air attack. Lyautey did not prepare enough advanced landing grounds near the theatre of war and did not concentrate his air forces until 27 April 1925, more than two w eeks after the Rif invasion had begun. N ot until Pétain visited the front in July w as perm ission sought for aircraft to cross the frontier and attack rebel sanctuaries in the Spanish zone. T h is neglect of independent air action is understandable, given that the staff of the 37th Régiment d'Aviation were confined to technical and adm inistrative tasks and were not intended to advise Lyautey about the broader possiblities of m ilitary aviation.5

[1861

COMPARISONS

In their reliance upon ground forces and initial hesitation over the independent use of aircraft, French m ethods employed in M orocco more closely resem ble those used by the British to suppress the M eso­ potam ian rising of 1920 than those used to police the m andated territo­ ries after 1922. T h is partly reflects the greater ferocity of the Rifian rebellion compared with, for example, the sporadic insurgency which took place in Kurdistan during the 1920s. But Lyautey's failure to strike hard with his air forces during the first two days of the Rifian advance in April 1925, when the bomber offered the only m eans of attacking the rebel colum ns, also illustrates a deeper structural difference between the British and French m ilitary bureaucracies. In 1918 the Royal Air Force w as set up as an independent service, equal in statu s to the Army and Royal Navy. But the French Air Force w as not acknowledged as an independent arm w ithin the arm y - like the Artillery or Infantry - until Decem ber 1922, and an Air M inistry w as not created in France until 1928. During the 1920s French air officers had less influence than their British counterparts, and the lack of effective air force representation at Lyautey's headquarters is a particular illustration of this general theme.6 The French Air Force nevertheless actively supported m ilitary opera­ tions in Morocco. The rapid evacuation of sick and wounded w as a constant concern to the French high com m and. T h is w as hampered, however, by m ountainous terrain and it m ight take several days to remove casualties overland from the m ost difficult areas of the A tlas to base hospitals. Experim ents with air am bulances had begun as early as 1910, but little progress w as m ade during the G reat War. Am bulance work becam e more serious after 1920 when French troops were sent overseas in large numbers, and w as particularly im portant in M orocco during the Rif war. In 1925 when fighting against rebel forces w as at its m ost intense, no fewer than 987 French casualties were evacuated by air to base hospitals in M eknés, Fez and Taza. Each squadron operated two am bulance aircraft and it w as found that light m achines were particu­ larly valuable for landing in otherwise inaccessible areas. The need to evacuate casualties becam e less urgent after 1931 as the fighting in M orocco subsided.7 D ifficult terrain also hampered the supply of French forces in M o­ rocco, and problem s of logistics were further com plicated by the way m any sm all garrisons had been encircled during the opening Rif offen­ sive. Air power could overcome these obstacles. For instance, m any French ground units, isolated in the Aoudir and Leben areas, were replenished by air with enough m unitions, water, food and m edicine to last twenty or thirty days. Whole squadrons took part in the operation, and a sim ple panel code sim ilar in principle to the 'Popham panel' used by the British aided co-operation between air and ground forces. Water

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w as norm ally carried in containers which were unloaded on the ground; when it proved im possible to land, large blocks of ice were dropped to the troops. It w as very difficult to drop supplies accurately within an area often no more than ten or twenty yards across unless the aircraft flew very low, which m eant m any aircrew were wounded by rebel rifle fire.8 The m ain functions of the French air forces in M orocco were to supply isolated posts and to evacuate casualties, but aircraft performed m any other tasks. Air reconnaissance w as difficult because the Rifs hid them selves so skilfully in the rugged terrain. N evertheless, low-flying aircraft guarded the flanks and rear of marching colum ns and som etim es discovered rebels w aiting in am bush. M uch of the rebel-held territory w as unknown in its details to the French and extensive aerial photogra­ phy helped to m ap the region more precisely. Aircraft brought scattered units into closer contact by dropping m essages and transporting senior officers. Supporting aircraft aided the infantry by bombing rebel posi­ tions before they were attacked by ground forces. T his close co-opera­ tion proved so successful that colum n com m anders becam e reluctant to advance unless air support were available; but their caution tied the air force to the battle on land and m ade the high com m and still less w illing to use air power independently. The few long-range raids against Rif base areas were too sporadic to be effective.9 In July 1925 a special volunteer squadron of the 37th Régiment d'Aviation, the Escadrille Chérifienne, w as formed in Paris. The ground personnel were French but the aircrew were m ainly Am ericans, som e of whom had flown w ith the Escadrille Lafayette in the Great War. The unit w as com m anded by Colonel Charles Sweeny, an Am erican m erce­ nary who had previously served in the French Foreign Legion and in the Polish Army against the Bolsheviks during the R ussian C ivil War. Recruits joined without form al enlistm ent, discharge or oaths of alle­ giance. The Escadrille flew 470 sorties against the Rifians, and its Breguet aircraft were often damaged by rifle fire. The unit w as widely criticized in the U nited States and, after it bombed the open city of Chaouen, the French bowed to international pressure and disbanded the squadron in N ovem ber 1925.10 The well-organized and efficient rebel forces were highly mobile, m ade skilful use of cam ouflage and exploited their superior knowledge of the terrain. Estim ates of the total rebel numbers varied widely but it would seem that between 35,000 and 50,000 were in the field in the autum n of 1925, a force which had dwindled to less than 20,000 by March 1926. The Rifs, arm ed m ainly with Spanish equipm ent captured in the early phases of the rebellion, m ade good use of the sm all quantities of artillery they had obtained. They also dug trenches, which gave som e protection from artillery fire and bombing, an innovation that British

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COMPARISONS

observers were reluctant to ascribe to rebel initiative, but preferred to explain by the presence in the Rif ranks of soldiers who had fought for the French M oroccan regiments in the G reat War. The technical experts with the Rif forces were m ainly men who had escaped from the French and Spanish Foreign Legions. The rebels were initially terrified of aircraft and armoured cars but soon adapted to these m echanical devices. They concealed them selves from reconnaissance machines, brought down several aeroplanes with rifle fire and trapped tanks in deep pits concealed with brushwood. By Novem ber 1925 the British ViceConsul at Fez concluded that the Rifs had 'grown to look with contem pt upon m odem arm am ent'.11 Shortly after the Rif invasion of French Morocco, a m ajor rebellion against European rule began in Syria. At the San Remo Conference of April 1920 France w as awarded the m andate for Syria and Lebanon, despite the clear w ishes to the contrary of the local population. The Am ir Faisal, who had earlier proclaim ed him self King of Syria at D am ascus, repudiated the San Remo decisions and demanded that his independence be recognized. French and Arab forces skirm ished during the spring and early sum m er of 1920,- in July the French began a full-scale m ilitary advance on D am ascus. Heavy fighting in the Anti-Lebanon gorges between French colonial troops and the Sharifian arm y showed that the latter, though more numerous, could not w ithstand the fierce attacks of the Senegalese infantry with light tanks and aircraft in support. The country was sw iftly conquered, Faisal fled to the Hijaz and the unwelcome French m andate w as im posed by force of arm s.12 There were interm ittent riots and risings against French dom ination but the greatest rebellion began not, as m ight be expected, with the D am ascene nationalists but among the Druze religious m inority in southern Syria. Philip Khoury considers that the rebellion w as partly provoked by the inappropriate application of m ethods learned in N orth Africa to the different conditions of Syria. A treaty in 1921 had recog­ nized the adm inistrative autonom y of the Druzes, but the French threat to the dominant Atrash fam ily had led to a revolt in 1922-23. After this brief rising was crushed, Captain Carbillet was appointed as Governor of the Druze. The choice was a disaster. Carbillet w as a dynamic modernizer who hoped to destroy the feudal system and free the Druze peasantry, but his use of forced labour to construct roads alienated the very people whose sym pathy he sought. By 1925 a revolt seem ed to impend: the arrest of three Atrash chiefs at a hotel to which they had been invited by the French then sparked a rising. Fighting began in July, and the Druze arm y of between eight and ten thousand m en soon lay siege to the French garrison of Suwayda, the Druze capital. In early August the rebels defeated a French relief colum n 3,000 strong.13

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The revolt w as not long confined to the Jabal Druze. A poor harvest, the decline of the Syrian currency (linked to the falling franc) and the failure of the French to improve social services had created a pool of discontent upon which the nationalists could draw. The Syrian People's Party had not originally planned an uprising but the rebellion in the Jabal Druze gave them a chance to press their dem ands on the French. A colum n under General G am elin recaptured Suwayda in September 1925 but w as soon forced to retire for lack of supplies. In October rebel activity began in D am ascus and Hama, and by the beginning of the following m onth a general rising w as in progress throughout central and southern Syria. Widespread fighting during the winter w as inconclusive; and it w as only in the spring of 1926 that the French began to regain control of the country. A m ajor French offensive finally recaptured Suwayda in April and cleared the orchards east of D am ascus during the sum m er. A shortage of m oney and m unitions had brought the rebellion to the brink of collapse by November, but sporadic fighting went on around H am a until April 1927 and in the Jabal Druze until June.14 The French had a large and well-equipped air force in Syria during the rebellion. T his com prised the 39th Régiment d'Aviation whose eight squadrons had their headquarters at Rayak in the Biqa valley, besides bases in all regions of the country. The squadrons were norm ally deployed at airfields singly or in pairs, but from tim e to tim e larger m asses would be gathered for a particular series of attacks. An intensive training programme carried out earlier in the year had left the regiment short of serviceable m achines at the outbreak of the rebellion, but its front-line establishm ent w as between sixty-four and seventy aircraft. The squadrons flew the Breguet 14, standard equipm ent for French colonial units, until these were replaced by the Potez 25 from the late 1920s. Flying conditions in the Syrian interior were generally excellent, apart from interm ittent dust storm s, and a safe landing could be made alm ost anywhere in the desert; but in Lebanon and the Jabal Druze, m ountains and basalt boulders made descent more hazardous. Rain, fog and occasional snow impeded operations from N ovem ber to M arch.15 As befitted a nation with a long history of conscription and populous colonies from which to draw recruits, the French depended upon the ground forces of the Armée du Levant to suppress the Syrian rising. At the end of 1921 the French had 70,000 soldiers in Syria, but this number fell to less than 15,000 by the end of 1924 after the Senate voted reductions in the credits for the Levant. But once the rebellion had begun, huge reinforcem ents of all kinds were sent to the Armée du Levant, which, by the end of A ugust 1925, included seventeen battalions of foot, supported by cavalry, artillery, tanks, cam elry and armoured cars. Reinforcem ents never seem ed to arrive fast enough to satisfy the

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COMPARISONS

generals, but by mid-May 1926 there were thirty-two infantry battalions in the country. Som e French officers privately expressed disquiet at this dependence upon regular infantry rather than air forces. In Novem ber 1925 General Duport, the A cting High Com m issioner, remarked that 'I have com e to the conclusion that the English form ula is best; nam ely a strong gendarmerie and m any aeroplanes.'16 T o avoid the political em barrassm ent of heavy losses to French m etropolitan troops, m ost of the reinforcem ents sent to the Arm ée du Levant were colonial battalions from Morocco, Algeria, Senegal and M adagascar. Local forces analagous to the levies raised in British m andated territory were also employed. An embryonic national army, the Syrian Legion (or Troupes Spéciales) w as recruited alm ost exclu­ sively from the local population; more than half its officers were Syrian or Lebanese. In 1925 the legion numbered 6,500 men, but its size w as gradually increased until in the later 1930s it reached 14,000. The force w as not entirely reliable; m any m en deserted during the assault on Suwayda and the rising in H am a w as sparked by a dissident Turcom an captain. The countryside w as also policed by a Syrian gendarmerie m ounted irregulars recruited m ainly from m inorities - which one British observer thought w as 'the m ost incom petent body of m en that can ever have existed'. The absence of an effective local gendarmerie encouraged the French to arm Lebanese C hristian villagers, but this policy merely aroused the hatred of 'even the m ost peace-loving D ruzes'.17 The French Air Force worked closely w ith ground troops to crush the revolt. During the final stages of the advance on Suwayda in April 1926, for example, several aircraft were detailed to act in close support of the tanks and infantry of the French colum ns. The heavy and continuous bombing of Druze positions in the outskirts of the town com pensated to som e extent for the failings of the French artillery and eased the progress of the im perial troops. When an isolated tank w as surrounded by about one hundred rebels a low-flying attack by a single aircraft drove off the Druzes and allowed the vehicle to retire safely. After the town had been captured the rebel troops began to retreat, but cavalry could not pursue them across the difficult terrain, so aircraft followed up the French success with bom bs and m achine guns. Yet the m ethods of army-air co­ operation were not fully developed. The failure to assign aircraft to work exclusively w ith the artillery partly explains the poor performance of the French guns in battle. N o arrangem ents were m ade to pick up m essages from the ground, little use w as m ade of w ireless, and one colum n had to advance without an air liaison officer. These failures of battlefield co-operation, which contrast with British success, are per­ haps surprising in an air force which w as itself a branch of the arm y.18 A s in M orocco the efforts of the French Air Force enabled the supply

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of isolated posts. The French garrison of Suwayda w as blockaded by the rebels from the middle of July 1925 until a relief colum n fought its way through in September. During the sixty-five days of the siege the garrison of 700 m en w as sustained by provisions flown in by four aeroplanes permanently alloted to this duty. The citadel w as at m ost 100 by 150 yards in area and to drop supplies accurately the aircraft had to descend to between twenty and one hundred feet above the rooftops, where they m ade fine targets for Druze m arksm en, rarely returning to base w ithout bullet holes. Provisions were at first dropped in single bags but, as these tended to split and scatter the supplies over a wide area, sacks of triple thickness were later introduced. Parachutes were only used to drop fragile item s, such as w ireless spares and serum s for the wounded. Had Suwayda not been supplied by air it would alm ost certainly have fallen to the rebels in the sum m er of 1925.19 Air am bulances were less widely employed by the French in Syria than in M orocco. Large scale battles were fewer and since m uch of the scattered fighting took place around D am ascus, casualties could be evacuated overland to base hospitals more quickly than in the m oun­ tains or deserts of Morocco. N evertheless, in the last week of July 1925 the forty aircraft concentrated at Rayak and D am ascus included eight am bulance aeroplanes, and, in the fighting which followed, these flew the serious casualties back to D am ascus from an advanced base at Ezraa. During the siege of Suwayda the French garrison was confined to an area too sm all to allow am bulance aeroplanes to land. When the town was temporarily relieved in Septem ber 1925, however, Avions Sanitaires were sw iftly sent to an auxiliary airfield nearby, from which the serious cases were evacuated. When Suwayda w as finally recaptured in April 1926 a battalion prepared a landing ground one and a half m iles w est of the town, and on the day after the French occupation all serious cases were flown to D am ascus.20 The French high com m and in Syria often used aircraft for reconnais­ sance and com m unication. The accurate reports of rebel m ovem ents received from observation m achines during the fighting around Suwayda on 25 April were of great value to the French leadership in the conduct of operations. The weather, of course, affected air reconnaissance, and fog prevented observation during the early part of the morning. During the relief operations in September 1925, air and ground forces com m u­ nicated by m eans of panels which were displayed to send prearranged signals; no attem pt w as m ade to pick up m essages by trailing hooks from aircraft, as w as standard practice in RAF arm y co-operation squadrons. Liaison aircraft were also exploited to ensure secrecy. When General G am elin decided upon a surprise concentric night m arch on the G houta (the gardens east of D am ascus) his orders were dropped to the units by

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aeroplane only a few hours before the advance took place. Senior officers them selves som etim es toured a region by air to gain knowledge at first hai|d. In September 1926, for instance, General Billotte (the O C Aleppo Area) m ade a personal air reconnaissance of the country east of N isibin, before despatching a colum n which he intended 'to im press the popula­ tion'.21 French bombers were given a more independent role in Syria than in Morocco. When a rising occured in H am a early in October 1925, the French Air Force bombarded the town, particularly its com m ercial district, destroying two bazaars and 115 shops. On 24 A ugust a m ixed force of 1,500 D ruzes and Bedouin attem pted to raid D am ascus, but w as driven back by bombers, supported by cavalry; this success appears to have dispelled som e initial French scepticism about the effects of independent air action. Extensive long-range bombing of towns and villages in the Druze country went on throughout the rebellion. Centres of Druze population were struck alm ost w ithout rem ission during the relief operations of September 1925, the largest raid being a m assed attack on Suwayda by twenty m achines; m uch damage w as done but the rebels were not forced to term s. The French high com m and m uch regretted the absence of heavy bombers, because the Breguet observa­ tion m achines could only carry 10- or 50-kilogram bom bs which could not sm ash in the cellars used as air raid shelters by the Druzes. Som e Breguet bombers able to lift 120-kilogram bom bs were in action by the spring of 1926 and these repeatedly attacked Suwayda. N o warnings were ever issued to allow the removal of non-combatants, despite Druze protests at this 'frightfulness'. These air raids show that the lack of air force structural autonom y did not preclude independent bombing opera­ tions.22 A British eyew itness to the battles around Suweyda in April 1926 remarked that 'no words will adequately describe the bravery of Druzes'.23 The rebels were indeed formidable opponents. Although neither num er­ ous nor well armed the Druzes were excellent shots and able to live on very slender rations. Rebel m obility and knowledge of the country m eant that the overwhelming French firepower could not often be brought to bear. Nevertheless, it does appear that aerial attack could intim idate the potentially rebellious,- bombing raids against dissident villages in the Haraun area in Decem ber 1925 thwarted the efforts of Druze activists to inspire a general rising. General Gouraud, however, believed that the insurgents could adjust to air attacks, particularly if these were not carried out in sufficient strength, and the evidence shows that the Syrian rebels did indeed evolve m ethods of adaptation. The Druzes became very skilled at taking cover in the difficult terrain of their homeland; they began to m ove their flocks only at night, and

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learned to leave their villages or hide in cellars when aircraft cam e near. By the spring o f 1926 they constructed dug-outs, like those built by the Zeidis in Yemen. A British m issionary who had shared the hazards of aerial bombardm ent w ith the Druze soldiers said that the latter 'had no fear whatever'. Aircraft flying low were at risk from rifle fire and several were brought down; by m id-August 1925 the three squadrons at Rayak had lost six pilots and three m achines, and all their remaining aircraft badly needed repair.24 Because they could not easily suppress the revolt, the French forces in their frustration began to carry out a deliberate policy of terror on the ground and from the air. While an artillery piece w as being readied to shell a village, the French officer in charge w as asked whether he intended to warn the inhabitants before opening fire. He replied 'm ais non - il faut les terrorizes ces gens là!'25 For several m onths, and always without warning, aircraft and guns repeatedly bombarded the villages around D am ascus until by April 1926 m ost had been battered to rubble. The Acting British C onsul in D am ascus believed that the French were pursuing 'a sustained policy of "frigh tfuln ess'" intended to terrify and exhaust the rebels into 'absolute subm ission'. In October 1925, to give but one example, French troops in D am ascus raided nearby villages that had sheltered the rebels. They plundered and burned m any houses, paraded the corpses of a dozen 'brigands' on cam el-back through the streets of the city, then exposed the bodies in a public square to strike fear in the population. Imperial troops, above all the local irregulars, often looted the shattered villages, and the French authorities seem ed unable or unwilling to check these excesses.26 T h is wave of terror had very m ixed results. Som etim es the uncom ­ m itted were cowed into remaining neutral; but more often the burning, looting and indiscrim inate bombardment embittered the population against the mandatory power and provoked the acts of defiance it w as intended to prevent. The villagers of the Ghouta, who at first gave only half-hearted help to the rebels, became actively sym pathetic to the rising after they suffered 'the cruelty and m isdeeds of French irregulars and native troops'. M any people were left hom eless after French bom b­ ers destroyed their villages,- the destitute refugees either crowded into D am ascus where they added another volatile elem ent to an already unstable city, or they joined the rebel bands 'partly through necessity and partly through genuine hatred of the French'. Even by the late sum m er of 1926 a hard core of active guerrillas remained in the field. 'They have nothing left to lose; the fear of punitive bombardment evaporates when all the villages have been bombarded.' The arm ing of local C hristians created a bittem ess which som etim es led to reprisals against C hristian villages, although the rebels did for the m ost part show

[194]

COMPARISONS

an 'admirable self-restraint' in this respect. The brutality of the imperial forces underlined the perceived illegitim acy of the mandate and prompted several insurgent protests to the consular body in D am ascus. The French newspaper L ’O rie n t defended the French 'reprisals' by claim ing they were less ferocious than those exacted by the British after the Iraq rebellion of 1920: the observation w as possibly true but of doubtful relevance.27 The French Air Force carried out this policy of terror m ainly by destroying villages. Its m ost notorious action, however, was the bom ­ bardment of D am ascus in October 1925. Shortly before dawn on the eighteenth, sm all parties of rebels, no more than a few hundred strong, infiltrated the southern and south eastern quarters of the city. Fighting broke out, the French authorities m isjudged the gravity of the situation and began to bombard the M uslim parts of the city w ithout warning. All French troops were withdrawn from the old town the following m orning and the bombardment by aircraft and artillery w as resumed, finally ceasing around noon on the twentieth. The area between Hamidiyyeh bazaar and a Street Called Straight was laid in ruins and m any of the m ost fam ous palaces and m osques were badly damaged or destroyed. The French officially adm itted that 150 civilians had been killed, but the estim ate made by the D am ascus M unicipality of 1,416 dead is probably more accurate. The British Consul w as m ost aggrieved. 'It is no use trying to close our eyes to obvious facts', he remarked. 'The unhappy people of this city have been cruelly wronged through the frantic action of a few soldiers who lost their heads and have ruined a great m etropolis of Islam .' H is resentm ent w as no doubt compounded by the fact that the Consulate was in the area subjected to bombardment. The rebels them selves protected the diplom ats from looters.28 The destruction wrought by French bombers and artillery provoked som e international protest, which grew more vocal when it w as learned that the m ilitary authorities had agreed to suspend the bombardment only if the city paid a fine of 100,000 Turkish gold pounds. Local bittem ess at this blackm ail w as so great that the fine was annulled in May 1926. But by then the citizens of D am ascus had a further grievance. C lashes with rebels in the Maydan quarter of the city on 6 May 1926 caused som e loss to the French. The next day, by way of reprisal, the French Air Force and artillery carried out a large-scale bombardment of the area w ithout m aking any effort to spare civilian life. Troops followed up, burning houses and preventing firefighters from reaching the blaze which raged for three days before exhausting itself. M aterial destruction w as greater than during the first bombardment, about 1,000 houses and shops being destroyed, although fewer people appear to have been killed. Som e of the French high com m and privately expressed disquiet at this

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terrorism. General Billotte (commanding Aleppo Area) belived that the bom bardm ents of D am ascus seriously damaged French prestige in the Levant. Colonel Ripert (the OC Troops, Dayr az-Zawr region) also regretted the partial destruction of D am ascus - he w ould have preferred to see the city entirely obliterated.29 The French also used aircraft to police the desert areas of the Levant. In the second half of the nineteenth century the Syrian Bedouin began to become more settled. The growth of a m arket economy, the develop­ m ent of com m unications and the m odernization of the O ttom an Arm y extended state control over the m argins of cultivation, brought more land under the plough and reduced tribal invasions. The French contin­ ued these efforts to settle the 300.000 Syrian nomads. In 1920 General Gouraud (the High Com m issioner) created the Contrôle Bédouin, a force of cam el com panies under French officers whose first outpost w as established at Dayr az-Zawr in June 1921. Tribal warfare remained com m on but the French forces began to intervene and offer arbitration. For a tim e the Contrôle Bédouin successfully prohibited tribesm en from carrying arm s in the settled areas; during the rebellion of 1925-27, however, these arrangements began to break down and tribal raiding increased. The French responded by increasing the role of air power in tribal adm inistration, occasionally forcing dissident tribes to subm it w ith punitive bombing. In April 1929, for example, there w as a further outbreak of the Sbaa-Rouallah conflict in the Jabal Bouida area about thirty m iles north of Palmyra. The French authorities im posed a neutral zone between the tribes and warned that any tribesm en found in this area would be attacked by aircraft. Tw o dem onstration raids were carried out on 1 M ay to em phasize this threat.30 The pattem of policing in the m andated territories reflected the structures of the defence establishm ent and the nature of resistance to the colonial power. When faced w ith large-scale rebellion, as in Syria in 1925 or in M esopotam ia in 1920, both the British and the French relied upon colonial infantry to reassert their power. N or were they overscrupulous about avoiding loss of civilian life, although the French seem to have been rather more careless than the British in this respect. During a m ajor rebellion aircraft were used m ainly in support of troops on the ground. There w as som e long-range bombing but this does not seem to have been conditioned by the existence of an independent air force: the French undertook som e long-range raids in Syria, but used aircraft less boldly in Morocco. Once the m ajor rebellions had been suppressed, however, differences of policy becam e more sharp. From 1922 the British established a system of air control in Iraq, and the direction of this policy undoubtedly owed a great deal to the independence of the Royal Air Force, which it in turn helped to sustain. In the Levant,

[196]

COMPARISONS

however, the French still relied upon an infantry garrison which w as larger in relative and absolute term s than that m aintained in Iraq. Only in the desert did the French use aircraft as the primary policing instru­ ment. For the control of scattered nom ads in the vast, arid spaces far from the centres of cultivation, the bomber was the perfect weapon.

The Italian Empire in Africa Air power and its attendant m ythologies especially enthralled the Italian Fascists. The speed, strength and novelty of m assed air form a­ tions seem ed to capture in m echanical form the dynamic power and m ilitary discipline exalted in Fascist propaganda. Sm all wonder then that leading Fascists sought to associate them selves w ith the new m ethod of m aking war. M ussolini had long been interested in aviation and before the Great War formed an 'aeronautical parliam entary group' in the Cham ber of Deputies. He learned to fly in 1919, liked to show off his skill as a pilot and wanted Fascism and flying to be publicly linked. In January 1923, shortly after he assum ed power, M ussolini founded the Regia Aeronautica, which was granted equal statu s with the army and the navy the following March. In 1927 he boasted to the Italian Parlia­ m ent that he would create an air force so large it would blot out the sun. M ussolini saw the conservative and m onarchist Italian Arm y as an imperfect instrum ent for his expansive am bitions, but the Regia Aero­ nautica w as Fascist from its very inception. The Futurist poet M arinetti, two Party Secretaries, Farinacci and M uti, M ussolin i's son-in-law G aleazzo Ciano and his sons Bruno and Vittorio all served in the new Italian Air Force. The attraction w as m utual and m any frustrated aviators saw in the Fascist m ovem ent a political force more sym pathetic to their hopes than w as traditional conservatism . The great Italian theorist of aerial warfare, G uilio Douhet, w as rewarded for his early support of M ussolini with the offer of the post of C om m issioner of Aviation in 1922, although he declined the opportunity. O utside Italy som e leading proponents of aerial or m echanized warfare, such as the Britons Basil Liddell Hart and 'Boney' Fuller, were outspoken in their adm iration for the Fascist regime.31 The importance attached by the Fascists to aviation w as reflected in propaganda displays which attracted international acclaim ; by the later 1930s Italy held m any world air records. Yet the im pressive show m an­ ship concealed im portant structural w eaknesses in the Italian Air Force. M ussolini undoubtedly valued personal and political reliability over m ilitary efficiency. Italo Balbo spent a productive seven years at the Regia Aeronautica, first as Under-Secretary from 1926, then as M inister from 1929, but he exploited the air force as a vehicle for his own political

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advancement. A gradual decline in the quality of Italian m ilitary aviation, relative to other European powers, became apparent after M ussolini took over all three service m inistries in 1933. The Air M inistry did not have the resources to expand, to undertake research, to purchase costly m odem aircraft and to chase expensive world records all at the sam e time. Balbo repeatedly urged the government to grant the air force more funds at the expense of the older services, but Italian air estim ates averaged only about fifteen per cent of the total spent on defence. In 1933 he advised that a M inistry of Defence be created to co­ ordinate relations between the services; he wanted the air force to be expanded and the army to be reduced to a twenty-division m echanized force. Over a ten-year period these plans would have cost no less than twenty billion lire, of which the air force would receive half, so M ussolini rejected the schem e as far too expensive. Colonial aviation w as afforded a particularly low priority. A statute of 1925 divided the Regia Aeronautica into four m ain sections: a seventy-eight squadron 'aerial army'; fifty-seven squadrons of army aviation; thirty five squad­ rons of naval aviation; and only twelve colonial squadrons. The influen­ tial theories of G uilio Douhet em phasized the destruction of civilian morale by m assive bombing raids against enemy cities, but paid little or no attention to colonial warfare, and Balbo publicly recognized that Douhetian principles were not valid in the African context.32 The Italians were, nevertheless, am ong the first pioneers of air power in colonial warfare, during the conquest of Libya which began in 1911. The country w as then under nom inal Turkish rule which pressed neither harshly nor very directly upon its poor and sparse population who lived m ainly from agriculture and stockraising. The badly organ­ ized Italian cam paign w as notable chiefly for the use of aeroplanes and airships, the first tim e that either had ever been actively employed in war. Although the Italian conquest was recognised by treaty in 1912 and an Empire proclaimed, European authority w as still confined m ainly to a few coastal enclaves. Libyan resistance w as co-ordinated by the Sanussi revivalist order of orthodox Sufis (or m ystics) founded by Sayyid M ohamm ed bin Ali al-Sanussi in the early nineteenth century. An Italian offensive in 1913-14 gained a foothold in the hinterland, but a full-scale rebellion which began in 1914 annulled even this lim ited advance. The following year the Italians were driven back to the coastal towns and, now preoccupied with a major war in Europe, were unable to prevent the effective autonom y of the rebels. An agreement in October 1919 formally recognized a lim ited degree of Libyan self-government and established local parliam ents. By 1921 Sayyid Idris, the head of the Sanussi Order, had gained the right to m aintain his own army.33 The Italian Army General Staff focussed its attention upon the

[198]

COMPARISONS

defence of the Alps and from 1919 diligently prepared to fight the Great War all over again. M ussolini, however, w as anxious to expand overseas where he hoped to find easier pickings than in Europe. As one might expect, the Fascist government pursued a more aggressive policy in Libya. The agreement with the Sanussi w as denounced and, partly to pre-empt the creation of a M uslim am irate of Libya, the m ilitary reconquest of the interior w as begun in 1923. By the following year the Italians controlled the coastal areas which included m ost of the popula­ tion but this hold could not be secure while rebels remained active in the hinterland. The Fascists underestim ated the logistical and m ilitary difficulties of the conquest. The war dragged on and more soldiers were com m itted. By the late 1920s there were alm ost 40,000 im perial troops in Libya but m ost of these were tied down along vulnerable lines of supply. In 1928 Italian forces from both Cyrenaica and Tripolitania linked up across the hitherto unconquered Sirtica desert. A colum n under General Rodolfo Graziani gradually subdued the Fezzan in south­ ern Tripolitania. From 1930 the Italians attem pted to deprive the rebels of food by herding the nom adic population, their possessions and their flocks into five large concentration cam ps in which thousands died. M arshal Badoglio, the Governor of the two Libyan colonies, apparently believed that only by such ruthless m easures could Fascist notions of order be imposed: 'by now the way has been shown and we m ust follow it all the way to the end, even if the entire population of Cyrenaica m ust perish'. The southernm ost Sanussi stronghold, the Kufra O asis, w as taken in January 1931 and in September U m ar Mukhtar, the leader of Sanussi resistance, w as captured, tried and publicly executed in breach of a prom ise of clemency. T h is ungenerous gesture m arked the end of the war, which had lasted alm ost a decade, and in January 1932 Badoglio proclaimed the country 'pacified'. The Fascist peace was bought at a cost of about 230,000 Arab lives lost in the Libyan provinces between 1922 and 1931. During this period, perhaps as m any as three-quarters of the Libyan nomad population died, m ostly from hunger and disease.34 During the conquest of Libya the Italians relied m ainly upon Eritrean and Libyan infantry, supported by Fascist M ilitia, cavalry, artillery and armoured cars. Very few units of the Italian regular Army were com m it­ ted to Libya. Italian losses during the Great War had been heavy, service overseas was unpopular with the Italian public and m etropolitan units were more costly than those raised from the colonial territories. Colo­ nial forces were not part of the arm y but were controlled by the Colonial M inistry and its governors, although their officers were seconded from regular units. The Regia Aeronautica supported the operations of troops on the ground. By May 1927 there were about forty m ilitary aircraft in Cyrenaica

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and thirty-three m achines were assem bled in Tripolitania for the recon­ quest of the Fezzan. M ost of these were single-engined Ro-1 biplanes, although a few larger Caproni bombers were available. Aircraft came into their own in the vast and arid spaces of the Libyan interior, even if bases and supply dum ps had to be laboriously prepared to m aintain squadrons in the far south of the country. Reconnaissance aeroplanes guided Italian colum ns to rebel bands, aerial photographs were used to plan m ilitary operations, and severely wounded soldiers were flown by air am bulance to hospital in Benghazi. Air attacks upon rebel form ations often preceded the advance of Italian troops and successes on the ground were followed up by aircraft pursuit of the retreating guerrillas. Aero­ planes supplied m unitions, food and m edical stores to im perial units and pro-Italian tribesmen. The colonial authorities tried to deny food and sanctuary to the rebels by sealing the border with Egypt. When the Egyptian government proved unco-operative, a less orthodox solution w as espoused. A wire barricade five feet high, thirty feet wide and 160 m iles long w as built along the frontier from Bardia on the coast deep into the Sahara. Approved by M ussolini in February 1931, work on the project began in April and was com pleted by September at a cost of 20 m illion lire. When finished, the wire barrier w as patrolled by aircraft and ground troops from three airfields and nine redoubts linked by tele­ phone.35 The Italian cam paign was guided by the crude assum ption that force alone could achieve political results. M arshal Graziani in particular encouraged the brutality of his troops in the m istaken belief that killing wom en and prisoners would itself induce the remaining rebels to surrender. Aeroplanes flew mobile courts m artial around the country to carry out show trials and sum m ary executions. Italian aircraft indis­ crim inately attacked Bedouin encam pm ents, dropped gas bom bs on rebel positions and, in a fitting coda to this phase of the civilizing m ission, m achine gunned the pitiful refugees fleeing from the Kufra oasis.36 The Sanussi warriors were far better equipped in the 1920s than they had been in 1911, for they had replaced their older rifles with new ones captured from the Italians. N evertheless, only about 2,000 Sanussi were arm ed w ith m odem weapons, and of these no more than about half were on active service at any one tim e. The war therefore rapidly assum ed an apparently incoherent pattem , with the Sanussi employing guerrilla m ethods of raiding, am bush and sabotage. Italian aircraft seem to have som etim es terrified the Libyans. Women captured in the C uf area in July 1927, for example, did not w ish to return to their tribes until m ilitary operations were over, for they had been struck w ith panic by the effects of bombing. During the early phase of the war the Italians gained m any

[200 ]

COMPARISONS

subm issions am ong those Bedouin w ithin easy reach of the coast, particularly as the latter 'had neither protection nor reply' to the bomber. Aircrew could easily detect rebel encam pm ents on the steppes; but the rebels later learned to keep to the rugged or forest areas of the plateau where they gained concealm ent and protection. The Sanussi also discovered that the appearance of an aeroplane often indicated the direction from which an Italian colum n w as advancing. Pilots had therefore to approach rebel bands from an unexpected direction if the Sanussi were not to escape the pursuing forces on the ground. The Sanussi were excellent shots and occasionally dam aged or destroyed Italian aeroplanes: wherever possible they salvaged m achine guns from the wreckage. As Italian air attacks becam e more indiscrim inate the rebels took reprisals against captured aircrew who were som etim es cut to pieces with knives or im paled on stakes.37 In 1933, to his great dism ay, Italo Balbo w as replaced as M inister for Air by M ussolini, who took direct control all three service m inistries. As a consolation Balbo w as awarded the governorship of Libya, a post created by a royal decree of Decem ber 1934 which fused the hitherto separate provinces of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica into a single colony. Henceforward the coastal area of Libya above the twenty-ninth parallel was adm inistered as a colonial extension of metropolitan Italy,- the desert to the south remained under m ilitary rule. T o police this latter zone Balbo replaced the existing cam el corps with a m ixed unit of aircraft, cam elry and m otorized infantry under the com m and of air force officers. The schem e bore a striking resem blance to British m ethods of air substitution employed, for example, in the Transjordanian desert, and doubtless reflected Balbo's dedication to the interests and prestige of the Regia Aeronautica.38 The war in Libya and the brief rebellions in the other Italian colonies set the tone for future Fascist m ilitary activity both in Europe and overseas. Elated by the ultim ate victory over the Sanussi, M ussolini becam e more than ever persuaded of his m ilitary competence, and concluded that the Italian armed forces were sound in their essentials. H is favoured remedy for temporary failure w as merely to m ake a scapegoat of an individual com m ander and replace him with som e rising Fascist star. These delusions would weaken the Italian m ilitary in the Second World War. The army had been reluctant to turn its attention from the Alpine border, but by the early 1930s had com e to look with more favour upon colonial expansion. The Italian wars of conquest and repression in Africa were also noteworthy for the extrem e brutality with which they were waged. All these them es were drawn together and made more intense during the conquest of A byssinia - the largest colonial cam paign waged by a European power between the two world wars and

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the occasion for the m ost fam ous and spectacular use of Italian colonial air power. Conveniently placed between the colonies of Eritrea and Somaliland, Abyssinia had been recognized as a sphere of Italian influence since the late nineteenth century - by the Italians if not by the Abyssinians. Many Fascists burned to avenge the defeat inflicted on the last invading Italian army at Adwa in March 1896. By the early 1930s M ussolini had decided upon war. A frontier incident at Walwal in Decem ber 1934 led to Italian air raids on Abyssinian positions, but M ussolini awaited a more favour­ able m om ent to attack. In the m eantim e his m ilitary preparations became obvious to the world. The long-expected Italian invasion began at the end of the rainy season in October 1935, under the leadership of Em ilio de Bono, an unim aginative relic whose m ain qualification for com m and appears to have been a devout attachm ent to Fascism . M ussolini keenly felt the political need for a rapid victory, so large numbers of regular troops, lavishly provided with m odem equipment, were com m itted to the invasion. The advance ground to a halt after one week for lack of supplies. The League of N ations at once condemned Italian aggression. For two m onths the cam paign lay in the doldrums, and during this lull M arshal Badoglio took command; in December the Italian advance w as successfully resumed. The Abyssinians fought hard, but were badly beaten, and in M ay 1936 Badoglio's men entered Adis Ababa in triumph.39 British air policing operations in their Middle Eastern territories differed in kind from the Italian war of conquest against the sovereign state of Abyssinia. They also a differed in scale. The Regia Aeronautica deployed huge numbers of aircraft in Abyssinia. During the initial invasion 164 m achines took part, a total which rose to 274 a year later, and these vast air fleets gave close support to the Italian troops on the ground. In February 1936 a lengthy bombardment by 170 aircraft preceded and covered Badoglio's successful attack on the Am ba Aradam. At night aeroplanes dropped flares to illum inate the battlefield and deprive the Abyssinians of the cover of darkness. During the battle of M ai C eu on 31 M arch 1936, seventy Italian bombers relentlessly pounded the opposing positions, dem oralised the Abyssinian troops and machine gunned the headquarters of Emperor Haile Selassie. After their defeat, the Emperor's formations, beaten but unbroken, abandoned the battlefield. Tw o days of ceaseless air attack turned an orderly w ith­ drawal into a chaotic rout. The Abyssinian colum ns suffered greatly as they retreated across the exposed Golgola plain, and eventually they dispersed into the highlands in sm all parties to escape the Italian bombers. N or did Italian generals shrink from directing the Regia Aeronautica against their own troops when these proved m utinous. In

[202]

COMPARISONS

January 1936 several hundred Libyans who had been falsely prom ised repatriation deserted from the 4th Gruppo of N asi's D ivision and attem pted to join the Abyssinians. They were pursued with armoured cars and bombers as a terrible exam ple to their wavering com rades.40 The system of air control in the m andated territories allowed the Royal Air Force to carry out an independent strategy in which bombing predominated. The leaders of the Regia Aeronautica had sim ilar strate­ gic am bitions in Ethiopia. They were determ ined to im plem ent the ideas of Douhet and to conduct an independent bom bing campaign, in which the choice of targets in Ethiopia would be controlled by radio direct from Rome. They wanted the Regia Aeronautica to possess its own system of supply, even though the construction of piers to serve new aerodom es on the Red Sea coast w ould have delayed the start of the cam paign until 1936. Aircraft operating from the existing air bases in the Eritrean highlands suffered reduced range and bomb load as the thin air at those altitudes gave less lift on take off. Five aerodromes were built on the shores of the Red Sea but these proved unsuitable owing to the unbearable sum m er heat, so the Italian bombers had still to fly from their m ountain bases. Furthermore, even the latest m achines, the SM 81 monoplane trim otors, did not have the range or the bomb load to carry out a Douhetian strategy against Ethiopia, even if there had been enough 'vital centres' in that preindustrial state to justify such a m ethod of waging war. N or did the structure of control reflect the principles of Douhet. An Air Force High C om m and in East Africa w as created in M ay 1935, but this w as subordinate to de Bono's Army Headquarters. The existence of an independent air force did not guarantee an independent strategy.41 Nevertheless, from the very beginning of the war Italian aircraft bombed centres of Abyssinian population. In this, they were more ruthless than either the British or the French in their m andates. A s early as 3 October 1935 the A byssinians com plained to the League of N ations that Adwa, an open town, had been attacked by Italian bombers, with losses among civilians, including the residents of the local hospital. The Italian government denied that the attack had taken place. A few days later, however, Italian aircraft caused 'serious casualties' when they m achine gunned women and children trying to escape the fighting. Once Badoglio took command, attacks upon Abyssinian cities becam e more frequent and the resulting international outcry w as cleverly exploited by Abyssinian propaganda. The raids do not seem to have terrified the population, but there is som e evidence that attacks upon civilians dem oralized the Abyssinian Army. Just before the battle of M ai Ceu in March 1936, for example, som e of Haile Selassie's soldiers deserted to seek news of their fam ilies who had been caught up in

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bom bing raids upon Abyssinian cities. Early in January 1936 one or two Italian aircraft deliberately bombed and m achine gunned the Red C ross station at Daghabur, although no casualties were caused. T h is attack w as one of a series carried out by the Italians on the city in retaliation for the killing and m utilation of an aircrew who had been forced to land in the nearby bush on 26 Decem ber 1935. In return the A byssinians publicly m utilated and beheaded an Italian lieutenant, M innetti, who had been captured during an air raid on the city. From the outbreak of the war both sides were sucked into a spiral of atrocity and retaliation which w as undoubtedly deepened by indiscrim inate bombing.42 During the first m onths of the war the operations of the Regia Aero* nautica were hampered by the supply problems which beset all Italian forces. When m ore petrol becam e available at advanced landing grounds, however, aeroplanes helped to free the leading Italian colum ns from com plete dependence upon land-bome com m unications. The m ost spectacular success of air supply occurred in February and M arch 1936, when a m obile colum n of colonial troops marched for sixteen days across the volcanic, w aterless and supposedly im passable D anakil desert to the oasis of Sardo, provisioned entirely by twenty-five aero­ planes. Air supply w as often used in the final stages of the advance on Adis Ababa, during which hundreds of tons of food were dropped by parachute, including bullocks and goats landed on the hoof. There were problem s associated w ith this method. Food dropped by parachute som etim es drifted out of reach of the troops, while the shock of im pact burst flour bags and crumbled biscuits. The m en of M arriotti's colum n were alm ost starving when they reached M akalle in Novem ber 1935, as aircraft had persistently dropped their supplies half a day's m arch behind them .43 The Italians soon discovered that negative air reconnaissance reports were not alw ays reliable. M arriotti's colum n w as am bushed in the dry Enda river gorge on 12 N ovem ber 1935 after observation aircraft had twice flown over the area without remarking anything. The Abyssinians exploited the shortcom ings of aerial reconnaissance. In Decem ber 1935 they launched a feint attack north w est from Dabat, with the intent that this be detected and reported by Italian aircraft. The m ain attack then m oved north east under cover of darkness, and successfully regained the pass of Dem beguina. Aircraft could operate alm ost anywhere from the open, undulating country of Boramo province in the far south, but m ountain m ists, dense woods and bush prevented reconnaissance over the M agada forest. Flying was also hampered by the rains of the late sum m er and early autum n of 1936. Then the Italian forces remained on the defensive while they waited for advanced landing grounds to dry and flying conditions to improve.44

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Abyssinian reactions to bombing can be classified according to the categories of terror, adaptation and resistance. Abyssinian soldiers were initially 'panic-stricken' by aircraft but soon developed m ethods of protection and concealm ent. In the very first m onth of the war, Gerazm ach Afewerk, com m anding the garrison of Gorahai fort, ordered his men to construct bomb-proof dug-outs, which greatly reduced the effect of air attack. Elsewhere, Abyssinian soldiers took refuge in caves, which afforded excellent protection, but at the cost of lowered morale. Italian aircraft several tim es attacked Haile Selassie, whose death would have been a major Fascist success, so the Emperor reduced the size of his retinue to m ake it less conspicuous from the air. M ovem ent by night usually passed undetected by air reconnaissance. The soldiers of the Abyssinian feudal army had traditionally eschewed personal cam ou­ flage as ungallant, but the bomber changed the m aterial conditions of war and made this chivalry redundant; Abyssinians who had to remain in the open in daylight began to carry leafy branches under which they stayed still when Italian aircraft were seen. G un and sm oke signals warned soldiers and non-combatants of the approach of Italian aero­ planes. Effective Abyssinian rifle fire brought down several m achines, m aking Italian pilots reluctant to attack below 4,000 feet, at which altitude their bombing became less accurate. The Abyssinian arm y had obtained thirty-six 2-cm Oerlikon anti-aircraft guns from Germ any in 1935 and these proved effective in action; the loss of aircraft on the southern front dem oralized the Italian Army in Borana province. These m easures reduced the im pact of aerial attack and, rather like Napoleonic cavalry, the Italian Air Force gained its greatest successes only in the pursuit of troops who had already been defeated on the ground.45 The Regia Aeronautica did not have the Abyssinian skies all to itself. A s Regent Ras Tafari Makonnen, Haile Selassie dem onstrated an early interest in air power. When rebellion broke out in Beghemder province in March 1930 three Abyssinian biplanes dropped proclam ations, hand grenades and bombs on the rebel force. After his coronation Haile Selassie sought to modernize the Abyssinian armed forces and he enlisted outside help to do so. He relied particuarly on sm aller European powers such as Belgium for m ilitary advice, and had built up an air force of twelve m achines by the tim e the war with Italy began. The Emperor w isely instructed his air force to avoid com bat with the vastly more numerous Regia Aeronautica. Instead the Abyssinian aircraft were used m ainly for scouting and liaison duties, carrying Haile Selassie to various sectors of the front where he could confer with his generals or encourage his demoralized troops. When it became apparent that the Abyssinian soldiers were som etim es terrified by Italian bombers, the Emperor ordered ten of his own m achines to tour all sectors of the front to

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accustom his m en to the sight of aeroplanes. Although no Abyssinian aircraft were shot down by the Regia Aeronautica, they suffered from a shortage of am m unition and spares. M ost were im m obilized by the spring of 1936, when they were destroyed on the ground.46 The British contem plated using gas bom bs in Iraq, although in the end they shrank from this course. The D uce w as less reluctant. Once Badoglio resum ed the offensive in Decem ber 1935, the Regia Aeronau­ tica began to employ poison and asphyxiating gases on the express orders of M ussolini, and in deliberate breach of the 1925 Geneva G as Protocol which Italy had ratified without condition. G as w as used in part to com pensate for the poor quality of the Italian artillery and its em ploy­ m ent doubtless owed som ething to the belief of Douhet that gas attacks upon cities would be the m ost deadly m eans of waging aerial war. The use of chem ical weapons aroused passionate feeling in A byssinia and led to international protest to the Italian government. M ussolini at first claim ed that the A byssinians had them selves begun the use of gas (allegedly supplied by Britain) then later denied that gas had been employed at all. A specim en of the liquid contained in an Italian bomb was, however, analysed at Porton Down, where it w as confirmed to be dichlorodiethyl sulphide, the vesicant ingredient of ordinary m ustard gas. Phosgene and chlorine were also used.47 The Abyssinian soldiers, who usually marched barefoot, had alm ost no protection against these chem ical weapons, which (although rarely fatal) could bum and blind. But the gas bom bs proved ineffective on steep hillsides, as the vapour tended to collect in the valleys, so the A byssini­ ans soon learned to keep to higher ground when under gas attack. There was, however, little chance of escape when the Italian aircraft used a fine spray which rained m ustard gas over a wide area. Haile Selassie painfully recalled that, during the retreat from M ai C eu in April 1936, 'our thin cotton sh a m m a s [cloaks] were soaked with m ustard gas'. Aircraft sprayed poison on the grasslands to deny forage to the pack anim als, and thirsty Abyssinian soldiers could not drink the water from lakes delib­ erately contam inated with gas. Chem ical weapons were probably deci­ sive in the general collapse of organized Abyssinian resistance in the spring of 1936.48 After the capture of Adis Ababa som e remnants of the Abyssinian Army fought on in the south-west under the leadership of the Regent, Ras Imru. When the latter w as captured and exiled in Decem ber 1936 M ussolini proclaim ed the country 'pacified', but this announcement had little m ilitary meaning. Rebel bands remained active and Italian forces controlled only sm all areas of the country. In February 1937, during an Italian m ilitary parade in Adis Ababa, a grenade attack injured Graziani and General Liotta, who com m anded the air force. W holesale

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reprisals, lasting several days, were carried out by the Blackshirts, who killed about3,000people in the capital alone. A plan to bomb St George's Cathedral was mercifully abandoned. Resistance grew during the sum m er of 1937 as Fascist atrocities forged a new unity am ong the divided Abyssinian tribes. In Novem ber a w iser and less repressive policy began when G raziani w as replaced and the Duke of A osta selected as Viceroy. But a major rebellion in Gojjan province in spring 1938 had still not been crushed by the tim e the sum m er rains put an end to m ilitary operations. The rebels were on the defensive by 1939, but A byssinia w as never brought under firm Italian control.49 The Ethiopian war revealed grave w eaknesses in the Regia Aeronautica, highlighted the confusion over its basic doctrine and exposed the tensions in its relations with the other services. When flying in close support of the army, Italian aircraft were found to have too little protection from anti-aircraft fire. Furthermore, the em phasis which the air force placed upon the doctrines of Douhet, which stressed m ass area raids on cities, m eant that accurate bombing had been neglected. In Ethiopia the Regia Aeronautica som etim es even bombed Italian troops. The desire to carry out a Douhetian strategy w as at first successfully resisted by the Army High Com m and. But once the Abyssinian arm ies had been beaten in the field the need for close air support declined, and terror raids against towns, alw ays a feature of the war, became more intense. There w as a need to clarify the strategic relationship between the air force and the other services, especially if the doctrine of close air support were to be emphasized, but this clarification w as unlikely while M ussolini exploited inter-service tensions for his own gain. The use of gas in Ethiopia also raised a number of awkward questions. Douhet believed that m erciless gas attacks upon civilian centres would m ost rapidly gain 'the com m and of the air'. T his brutal strategy had appar­ ently been vindicated in Ethiopia, but if the use of gas against Africans had aroused vehement international opposition it w as likely that gas attacks against European civilians would cause still greater outcry. N or could the Ethiopians reply in kind, unlike a European power with a fleet of m odem bombers. Douhet had faced the troubling prospect of retali­ ation by advising the construction of a bomber force more m assive than that of any likely opponent. T his was never a very plausible strategy for a m ilitarily weak power like Italy, and the Ethiopian war made it a still less practical option. T hat conflict disrupted the Italian programme of rearmament, and in 1940 the Regia Aeronautica entered the European war outnumbered and outdated.50

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Conclusion Police bombing w as an alm ost universal feature of colonial dom ination between the two world wars. In the formal empires of the European powers and the inform al dependencies of the U nited States, in m andates and protectorates, in the territories of the white dom inions and in the m argins of successor states aircraft violently repressed rural (and som e­ tim es urban) opposition to the dom inant elite. The very use of the bomber is perhaps the m ost im m ediate sim ilarity to British methods; but there are also points of closer contact. The schem e of air control set up in southern Libya during the governorship of Italo Balbo bears the nearest resem blance to air substitution as practised in the British Middle Eastern Empire. The activities of the French Contrôle Bédouin in Syria in the later 1920s also recall the British use of aircraft to dom inate the desert nom ads of Transjordan and Iraq during the sam e period. In each of these cases, the structures of control mirrored the division between the desert and the sown, with bombers being used to quell the nom ads while less heavy-handed form s of policing were employed against the settled urban and agricultural population. But it is im portant to note that air control w as only employed in the Syrian, Libyan and Iraqi deserts once large-scale and widespread rebellions had been crushed by more conventional m eans. Air policing was a strategy of control, not of conquest. The tactical details of aircraft em ploym ent (whether in close support, reconnais­ sance, supply or am bulance m issions) were also broadly sim ilar whether the air force in question w as an independent service such as the Italian Regia Aeronautica, or merely a com ponent part of the regular army, as w as the case in France. It is instructive to compare the responses of the various indigenous peoples subjected to European bombing. The British did not expect that Africans and A sians would be able to adapt to air attack or fight back against bombers. British com m entators were surprised when tribesm en dug bomb-proof shelters or shot down aeroplanes of the Royal Air Force. A sim ilar pattem can be seen in the French and Italian colonial Empires. Bombing did som etim es terrify those who had no experience of it, but Druze rebels, Sanussi tribesm en and Ethiopian soldiers all developed effective strategies of adaptation to air power. They used caves as protection and tried to m ake them selves less conspicuous from the air by dispersal or cam ouflage. The aviators of the various European powers shared the belief that tribesm en would not be able to retaliate against bombers, but rebels in Libya, M orocco and the Levant were able to damage and even destoy aircraft with accurate rifle fire.

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The im perialists of all European powers confounded their interests w ith those of civilization itself, but they pursued their aim s with varying degrees of violence. By the m id-1920s in the British Empire, the lethal powers of the bomber were som etim es curbed by warning leaflets or replaced by threatening displays. When faced by large-scale rebellion in M orocco and the Levant, French bombers often attacked centres of population w ithout any warning or other effort to avoid the loss of life. But the Italian Fascists seem ed at tim es to m ake a virtue of a brutality that was m uch more system atic than the occasional excesses of the dem ocracies. M ussolini had silenced his liberal and socialist critics w ithin Italy, and had nothing but contem pt for the verbal strictures of the League of N ations, so long as they were unaccom panied by effective m ilitary or econom ic action. He had less to fear than an elected head of state from dom estic protest, and unlike the British could hence afford the political costs of using gas on a large scale in colonial warfare. British policy w as distinctive in at least one respect. The schem e of air control established by the British in Transjordan, Iraq, Aden and Palestine differed fundam entally from the Italian war of conquest in A byssinia or the French war of repression in the Levant. In the M iddle East after 1922 the Royal Air Force w as used not in addition to more conventional form s of policing, but often in place of them. Under the pressure of econom y the vast garrisons of im perial infantry in the former O ttom an territories were gradually reduced, and British authority sub­ sequently upheld by a m ixture of aircraft, armoured cars and local levies, under the com m and of air force officers. Against sporadic raids and rebellions this frugal com bination sufficed, and it w as only when faced with a m ajor popular uprising, such as the Arab Revolt in Palestine, that British m ethods reverted to a former type. The skeletal nature of the repressive forces under air control also im posed its own lim itations. The British could not afford the political costs of excessive violence, since they did not have large colonial arm ies stationed in their mandated territories, unlike the French or the Italians. The air control schem e advanced by Churchill and im plem ented by Trenchard w as the product of a particular financial, m ilitary and political conjuncture unique to the British Empire in the M iddle East.

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GENERAL CONCLUSION

Roger Beaumont has claim ed in his article, revealingly titled 'A N ew Lease on Empire', that air policing prolonged the life of British im peri­ alism by perhaps ten years. Every historian likes to exaggerate the significance of their particular subject since, as Braudel observed, 'to its author every work seem s revolutionary, the result of a struggle for m astery'. But Beaum ont's aggrandisment cannot be accepted, even though it m ight enchance the status of this work. It is doubtful if the duration of the British Empire as a whole w as at all affected by air policing, important though the new method of control m ay have been in certain territories. D espite occasional use in Egypt, Ireland and outside the Frontier Province in India the successful large-scale practice of air policing was confined to the m argins of Empire. Adm ittedly the Air M inistry took control of defence in the Aden Protectorate and the Palestine Mandate, but these sm all exceptions do not validate Beaum ont's assertion. In both Aden and Palestine only a single squadron w as norm ally deployed; in both territories aerial action w as confined to rural areas or the desert hinterland and did not displace ground forces in cities; and in Palestine air policing had anyway demonstrably failed by 1936. The British Empire disintegrated as and when it did because the ruling elite was unable to contain m ass m ovem ents of national liberation: air policing w as at m ost a footnote to this process. N or can it be maintained, as som e historians have attem pted to do, that air policing greatly influenced the internal development of the Royal Air Force. T his study has shown, perhaps conclusively, that the training, doctrine and technology of the RAF in Europe developed for the m ost part in isolation from its imperial role. Obsolete m achines were indeed retained in the Empire long after their possible value in a European war had expired, but this obsolescence overseas did not retard the development of the new types which gradually re-equipped the squadrons of the home command. Specialized aircraft were developed to perform policing functions overseas, and these were doubtless inade­ quate for European conditions, but they were never intended to be deployed at home. The one area of armed conflict with a first-class power in which policing m ay be held to have exerted an influence was in the defence of Singapore, where the Vickers Vildebeest, designed as a com prom ise torpedo bomber and policing aircraft, proved inadequate when faced by Japanese fighters in 1941-42. But the confusion of British defence policy at Singapore w as such that the obsolescence of two

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squadrons cannot have greatly affected the outcom e of the M alayan campaign. N or did air policing contribute in any decisive way to the development of British strategic bombing doctrine, which owed its ascendency to technical uncertainty, to a lack of em pirical evidence and to the bureaucratic politics of service rivalry. But the RAF owed m uch more to air policing than any detailed study of strategy, technology or training w ill show. Had the doctrine of 'control w ithout occupation' not been successfully developed and ap­ plied in Iraq, it is alm ost certain that the Royal Air Force would not have survived long into the 1920s. The Adm iralty and the War Office were both anxious to regain control of the naval and army co-operation portions of the air force, and had they done so im m ediately after the Great War it is doubtful if the independence of the rem aining squadrons could have been justified. The dom inant concern of British defence policy in the few years after the Great War w as to reduce m ilitary expenditure while at the sam e tim e retaining control of the territories which had passed to British influence as a result of that conflict. The British presence in Iraq w as costly and unpopular,- but it prom ised oil supplies for the Royal N avy and could not be given up without the risk of reconquest by Turkey. The air control schem e offered the British government the m agical form ula of continued control w ith reduced expenditure, and this unorthodox m ethod offered one solution to a central dilem m a of post-war im perialism . The various com m ittees which exam ined the question of an independent air force usually took econom y as their starting point and final goal; and air control in Iraq was cheaper than conventional m ilitary occupation. The survival of the Royal Air Force in the 1920s had far reaching im plications; for even had an independent service been recreated in the 1930s, it is doubtful if it would have attained the sam e degree of excellence dem onstrated by Fighter Com m and in the defensive battles against the Luftwaffe in 1940. If air policing cannot be said to have prolonged the existence of the British Empire, it nevertheless had a dram atic im pact on those societies subjected to its m ethods. Those peoples who inhabited the swam plands, m ountains and deserts on the fringes of the settled agricultural plains could, by reason of their rem oteness, m artial qualities and poverty, escape both the benefits and the drawbacks of civilization. The reach of the pre-industrial state into these areas w as at best sporadic. Punitive colum ns of Indian troops could be sent into the Frontier zone, but in default of expensive continuous occupation, such occasional visitations were transient in their effects. The emergence of the aeroplane as a weapon to enforce government dem ands irreversibly altered the balance of power between the central state and the societies on its geographical margins. The Royal Air Force w as often the first instrum ent of govern-

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m ent which persistently and effectively intruded upon the com m uni­ ties of desert nom ads and m ountain tribesmen. The aeroplane was certainly not all-powerful, as the history of adaptation and resistance to its encroachm ents has shown; but if indigenous responses could modify or m itigate the workings of air policing they could not reverse the process of internal conquest. The long-term im pact of air control was, however, not confined to geographically m arginal societies. The British m ilitary presence in Iraq in the 1920s w as essential to m aintain the internal cohesion of the new kingdom and to secure its frontiers against T urkish revanchism . But the British government w as unwilling to fund an unpopular and costly garrison, or run the risk of a rebellion on the scale of 1920. Had the air control solution not been devised, accepted and im plem ented it is probable that the British occupation would either have been contracted to the Basra vilayet or been ended altogether. The nascent H ashem ite Kingdom could not defend its northern frontier unaided, and a British withdrawal would have been followed by the restitution of Turkish control, either by force or by negotiation, over the m ainly Kurdish vilayet of M osul. In the Aden Protectorate, the desire of the British government to resist the encroachm ents of the Zeidi Iman w as checked by an unw illingness to fund a m ilitary expedition to the interior. Air power offered a cheap but effective m eans of securing the borders of the Protectorate; and the hinterland tribes began to look increasingly to the um brella of aviation at Aden for protection from the Iman. Air power changed the m ilitary relationship between the Protectorate tribes and the Aden government, and set in train a process of growing m utual dependence which culm inated in the emergence of an independent South Yemeni state. The decision to support Abdullah in Transjordan with aeroplanes also had significant long-term consequences; for it was the bombers and armoured cars of the Royal Air Force that turned back the invading m asses of Ibn Saud's m ilitant Ikhwan in 1924, and which m aintained Abdullah's postion against internal dissidents. The air force was not the only elem ent involved, but it would be reasonable to claim that the m odem frontiers, and even the existence, of South Yemen, Jordan and Iraq are in part a legacy of air policing. The m ethods of air policing were also distilled into subsequent doctrine. The succesive wars of national liberation fought by guerrilla m ethods during the 1950s prompted the emergence by the early 1960s of a body of counter-insurgency theory. Although this was based m ainly on the experiences of the French in Algeria and Indo-China and the British during the M alayan emergency, certain references to the inter­ war practice of air policing can be found. It was advised that aircraft should be slow, piston-engined types, which could strike m uch more

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selectively than the fast jet bombers designed for conventional com bat. For the key to successful counter-insurgency w as to break the political links between the guerrillas and the population, and this could not be achieved if the violence employed by the government w as excessive or indiscrim inate. The prescriptions of the theorists were consistently ignored during the Am erican war in Vietnam in the later 1960s, which rem ains an outstanding m odel of how not to counter an insurgency. During the 'interwar' period the air force confronted a sim ilar m ove­ m ent of national liberation only in Palestine, and it is significant that air control in that territory w as abolished soon after the outbreak of the Arab Revolt in 1936. The Palestinian rebels put forward advanced political demands, including dem ocratic self-government and an end to Z ionist colonisation. Aircraft could intervene against the hill bands but were im potent against the more sophisticated form s of political action such as the general strike or the boycott of Jewish produce. The rebellion in Palestine had far more in com m on w ith the insurgencies fought to end formal im perialism after the Second World War than it did with the tribal resistance to central government in m arginal geographical areas that were the characteristic theatre of air policing. The failure of the air force in Palestine illustrates the lim itations of the bomber as a repressive instrum ent and futher undermines Beaum ont's argum ent that air polic­ ing w as a 'N ew Lease on Empire'. Air power could usually contain tribal dissidence because the latter w as geographically m arginal and lacked any coherent programme other than opposition to central government. The Iraq rebellion of 1920 w as formidable only because of the num bers of tribesm en involved and because they were joined by m any dissident former O ttom an civil servants and officers. Against the m ass peasant m ovem ents after 1945, which were alm ost alw ays led by organized political parties and inspired by a heady ideological m ixture of social revolution and national liberation, the m ethods of air substitution could achieve only lim ited results. It is significant that, during the wars of decolonization, the British achieved their greatest degree of success in M alaya and Kenya: in the former territory the insurgents were drawn m ainly from the Chinese ethnic m inority which w as isolated from the remainder of the population, and in the latter the m ain threat to internal security w as the atavistic M au M au m ovem ent which lacked a coherent ideology of liberation. Yet even in the control of m odem proletarian unrest, aircraft can still serve ruling-class interests, even if only in an auxilliary capacity. Knowledge is a form of power, and when rioters, dem onstrators or strikers are to be contained, accurate information of their numbers and m ovem ents is a useful weapon. It enables repressive forces to be directed more precisely and used more sparingly. H elicopters in particular are an

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ideal m eans of collecting intelligence helpful to the civil security of the state. In 1981 police harassm ent com bined with econom ic despair to provoke a few days' rioting by the citizens of Brixton in south London. The protestors were kept under surveillance by police helicopters, equipped with video cam eras. Sim ilar techniques were used to track the m ovem ents of pickets during the strike by British m iners in 1984-85. In Beijing's Tiananm en Square in the sum m er of 1989, helicopters sur­ veyed the m ass dem onstrations for democracy and bombarded them with propaganda leaflets. But this m ovem ent w as broken, for a time, by more conventional m ethods of m assacre. N evertheless, air power is losing m uch of its effectiveness as a polic­ ing instrum ent. The technical im peratives of counter-insurgency con­ tinue to operate, and num erous specialized aircraft have been developed, particularly in the U nited States; but technological change is not a one­ sided process: the hand-held anti-aircraft m issiles carried by the M uslim rebels in the early 1980s did m uch to undermine the im pact of Soviet air power during the invasion of Afghanistan. The Palestinian uprising of 1936 w as only one round in a continuing political and m ilitary struggle against Z ionist colonization. The Israeli air force has struck w ith deadly efficiency against the squadrons of neighbouring Arab states and the refugee cam ps in Lebanon,* but it is alm ost im potent against striking Arab workers or stone-throwing children in the occupied territories. In South Africa, the m ethods used to subdue tribal dissidence in the 1920s cannot be applied against the m ass m ovem ent of organized black workers. That conflict w ill not be decided by the helicopter gunship.

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NOTES

Preface 1 On technology and imperialism see the useful works by Daniel Headrick, The Tools of Empire and The Tentacles of Progress. A recent study by James Belich, The New Zealand Wars, has done much to further our understanding of indigenous responses, but unfortunately this book did not come to my attention until my own research was complete. 2 Hyde, British Air Policy Between the Wars. 3 Killingray, "'A Swift Agent of Government": Air Power in British Colonial Africa, 1916-39'; Cox, 'A Splendid Training Ground: The Importance to the Royal Air Force of its Role in Iraq, 1919-32'; Beaumont, 'A New Lease on Empire: Air Policing, 191939'. 4 Townshend, 'Civilization and "Frightfulness": Air Control in the Middle East Be­ tween the Wars' in Wrigley (ed.), Warfare, Diplomacy and Politics. 5 Sluglett, Britain in Iraq, 1914-32; Gavin, Aden Under British Rule, 1839-1967} Lewis, The Modern History of Somaliland. 6 See for example the recent and very disappointing book by Anthony Clayton, The British Empire as a Superpower, 1919-39. 7 Smith, British Air Strategy Between the Wars.

Chapter One 1 Hughes, Firepower; Chandler, The Campaigns of Napoleon; Crawford, 'The Sikh Wars' in Bond (ed.), Victorian Military Campaigns. 2 Headrick, Tools of Empire, Part 1. 3 Headrick, Tools of Empire, Part 2. 4 Ellis, A Social History of the Machine Gun. 5 Headrick, Tools of Empire, Part 3; Tentacles of Progress, Chs 2-4, 6. 6 Kieman, European Empires from Conquest to Collapse, 128. Lecture by Maj. B. BadenPowell, 8 Dec. 1909, fRUSI, 54 (1910) 555-81. Lecture by W. F. Reid, 22 Feb. 1911, JRUSI, 55 (1911) 735-49. 7 Kieman, European Empires from Conquest to Collapse, 128. Sweetman, Ph.D. thesis, 10. 'The War in the Mediterranean', JRUSI 56 (1912) 1318-24, 1614-19. 8 Hinds, 'Bombs Over Mexico'. Leary, 'A Short History of the Royal Thai Air Force', 93. 9 Killingray, 'A Swift Agent of Government', 429. Extract from Notes by a German Officer, AIR 9/59. AS Notes on Aircraft in the Sudan, 12 Dec. 1924, AIR 2/1460. Op­ erations Against Mahsuds, March to Aug. 1917, Ch. 1, AIR 5/1321. 10 Fredette, The First Battle of Britain. Cooper, 'The Development of Air Policy and Doctrine on the Westen Front', 41. 11 There is a comprehensive account of the origins of the Royal Air Force in Sweetman, Ph.D. thesis. The original points are helpfully summarized in Sweetman, 'The Smuts Report of August 1917'. Second Report of Smuts Committee, 17 Aug. 1917, AIR 8/3. Also see note 10 above. 12 The exact figure was 27,906 officers and 263,842 other ranks; The Next War in the Air, CID 349-B, CAB 4/8. 13 Gilbert, Winston Churchill, TV 197-202, Companion IV i 452, 563. Waldie, Ph.D. thesis, 16. 14 Gilbert, Winston Churchill, IV 199-212, 472, 476; Companion i 636, 823-4, 833. Waldie, Ph.D. thesis, 16-17. Trenchard to Salmond, 17 Feb. 1919, Trenchard Papers

[2151

N O T E S TO pp. 9-21 MFC 76/1/137. 15 Report by Gen. Munro, 1 Nov. 1919; Operations Against Afghanistan, Ch. 2; AIR 5/ 1321. AS Memo on an Afghan War, 7 Nov. 1921, CID 123-D, CAB 6/4. 16 Operations Against Afghanistan, Ch. 2, AIR 5/1321. Halley, T he Kabul Raid1, 438-9. 17 Operations Against Afghanistan, Ch. 2; Report by Munro, 1 Nov. 1919,- AIR 5/1321. 18 Kieman, European Empires from Conquest to Collapse, 196. Halley, T h e Kabul Raid'. And see note 13 above. 19 Sluglett, Britain in Iraq, 262; Townshend, Britain's Civil Wars, 138, 190-3; Kieman, European Empires From Conquest to Collapse, 196. Killingray, 'A Swift Agent of Government', 430. Report of Indian Disorders Committee, 6 May 1920, CP. 1240, CAB 24/105. Rescue of Col. Jacob's Mission at Bajit, Yemen, Nov. to Dec. 1919, Ch. 1, AIR 5/1299. 20 For this paragraph and the next two see: Operations in Waziristan, Ch. 3, AIR 5/1321; and the periodic reports (too numerous to list individually) from the Government of India Army Department to the Secretary of State for India in CAB 24/93-103. 21 Viceroy, Army Department, to Secretary of State, 28 Jan. 1920, CP.534, CAB 24/97; and 9 Feb. 1920, CP.606, CAB 24/98. 22 Operations in Waziristan, Ch. 3, AIR 5/1321. 23 Ismay Papers III/1/22. Proposal for Operations Against the Somali Mullah, M02(b), 19 Nov. 1918, WO 32/5828. 24 Waldie, Ph.D. thesis, 35-6. Killingray, 'A Swift Agent of Government', 434. Gilbert, Winston Churchill, TVCompanion i 503, 512, 564,649,661-2, 709, ii 838. Hoskins to WO, 22 Dec. 1918, WO 32/5828. WC.519 m.3, 24 Jan. 1919, CAB 23/9. 25 Operations Against the Mullah in Somaliland, Chs 1-2, AIR 5/846. 26 Waldie, Ph.D. thesis, 36-40. Killingray, 'A Swift Agent of Government', 435. Townsh­ end, 'Civilization and Frightfulness', 145. Operations Against the Mullah in Somali­ land, Ch. 2, AIR 5/846. Ismay to Coote, 30 March 1962, Ismay Papers HI/1/87. Lecture to Staff College, Quetta, Aug. 1922, Salmond Papers B.2620. Memo by Rawlinson on Salmond's Report, undated c.1922, Salmond Papers B.2611. 27 A balanced account of the overthrow of the Mullah appears in Lewis, A Modern History of Somaliland.

Chapter Two 1 Jeffery, The Wilson letters, 283. 2 Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/138. 3 For the Mesopotamian background see Stephen Longrigg's elegant if sometimes pompous general history Iraq 1900-1950. AI Notes on Mesopotamia, 27 Feb. 1920, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/36. 4 Sluglett, Britain in Iraq, esp. Ch. 7; Cox 'A Splendid Training Ground',- Gilbert, Winston Churchill, Ferris, Ph.D. thesis,- Jeffery, The British Army and the Crisis of Empire; Darwin, Britain, Egypt and the Middle East. Air policing in Iraq is also discussed in the early chapters of Hyde, British Air Policy Between the Wars 19181939. 5 Sluglett, Britain in Iraq, 9-26,- Longrigg, Iraq 1900-1950, 75-121. 6 Gilbert, Winston Churchill, IV 818, Companion It 1036-7; Sluglett, Britain in Iraq, 103-15; Cole, Imperial Military Geography (1931 ) Ch. 3. Memo by Churchill, 12 Nov. 1919, CAB 24/93. Memo by Long, 29 June 1920, CP. 1554, CAB 24/108. CID Oil Board, First Annual Report, 31 Dec. 1926, CAB 50/3. C. 16 (20) 4,23 March 1920, CAB 23/20. 7 Darwin, Britain, Egypt and the Middle East, Ch. 2,- Jeffery, The British Army and the Crisis of Empire-, Townshend, Britain's Civil Wars, 84. 8 Memo by Churchill, 12 Nov. 1919, and Appendix by GS, CAB 24/93. 9 Gilbert, Winston Churchill, TV 478, Companion ii 1036, 1087. Note to CAS, 19 Feb. 1920; Churchill to Trenchard, 17 March 1920; Extract from Statement by S of S in HC, 22 March 1920,- Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1 /36. Churchill to Trenchard, 29 Feb. 1920, AIR 5/224. Memo by AS and Memo by Trenchard, March 1920, CP. 1320, CAB 24/106.

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N O T E S TO pp. 22-28 10 Churchill to Trenchard, 17 March 1920, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/36. India Office to Air Ministry, 5 July 1920; Air Ministry to India Office, 8 July 1920; AIR 5/224. Memo by Churchill, 1 May 1920; Minute by Wilson, 6 May 1920,- CP.1320, CAB 24/106. Hankey to PM, 28 May 1920, Hankey Papers CAB 63/27. Waldie, Ph.D. thesis, 18. Gilbert, Winston Churchill, Companion IV ii 1076. 11 Kedourie, England in the Middle East, 192-3; Sluglett, Britain in Iraq, 41, 61 n. 119; Gilbert, Winston Churchill, IV490-7, Companion ii 1158,- Townshend, Britain's Civil Wars, 95-6; Longrigg, Iraq 1900-1950, 122-6; Darwin, Britain. Egypt and the Middle East, 198-201-, Haldane, T h e Arab Risingof 1920'; Nadhmi, Ph.D. thesis. The extent and Ferocity of the 1920 rebellion can be estimated from the number of troops required for its repression: 1 July 1920 (before rebellion)

October 1920(rebellion: maximum) 52 battalions 7 regts cavalry 22 batteries 4 sqns RAF

32 battalions 7 regts cavalry 18 batteries 2 sqns RAF

12 13

14

15 16

17 18

19 20

21

Increase: 20 battalions 4 batteries 2 sqns RAF Source: Memo by Hoare, 14 May 1925, CP.244 (25), CAB 24/173. Gilbert, Winston Churchill, Companion IV ii 1176-7. Despatch from Haldane, 23 Aug. 1920, Ch. 3, AIR 5/1253. Report by Haldane, CP.2652, CAB 24/120. Telegrams from Civil Commissioner, Baghdad, 2 to 19 Aug. 1920, CP. 1796, CAB 24/110. Gilbert, Winston Churchill, TV 490. Haldane to Churchill, 25 June 1921, AIR 5/476. Haldane to WO, 4 to 12 July 1920, CP. 1646, CAB 24/109. Notes by AS, Feb. 1920, CP.2652, CAB 24/120. Memos by AS, Trenchard and Churchill, Aug. 1920, CP.1823, CAB 24/111. Waldie, Ph.D. thesis, 51-2. Haldane, T h e Arab Rising in Mesopotamia 1920#, 68-9. Gilbert, Winston Churchill, Companion IV ii 1119. Memo by Radcliffe, 7 Dec 1920, CP.2275, CAB 24/116. Haldane to HC, 6 Nov. 1920, AIR 23/439. Wilson to Rawlinson, 5 Jan. 1921, Jeffery (ed.), The Wilson Letters, 222. C.69(20)5 and C.70(20(l, 13 Dec. 1920; C .72(20), 17 Dec. 1920; all in CAB 23/23. Gilbert, Winston Churchill, IV 507-9, 514-6, 527-8, Companion ii 1299, 1309-10. Wilson to Congreve, 20 Jan. 1921; Wilson to Haldane, 24 Jan. 1921; Jeffery (ed.), The Wilson Letters, 228, 230. C.82(20(4, 31 Dec. 1920, CAB 23/23. Sluglett, Britain in Iraq, 48-50. Gilbert, Winston Churchill, TV522,532-3. Radcliffe to Wilson, 21 March 1921, Jeffery (ed.), The Wilson Letters, 242. C.7(21)2, 14 Feb. 1921, CAB 23/24. AS Memo, March 1921, CID 135-C, CAB 5/4. Note by A. T. Wilson, 26 Feb. 1921; Trenchard to Borton, 16 March 1921; AIR 5/476. Middle East Conference, 12 to 30 March 1921, CP.2866, CAB 24/122. Cairo Proceedings, 12 to 30 March 1921, CP.2866, CAB 24/122. Memo by Devonshire, 27 March 1923, CP.171(23), CAB 24/159. Memos by Worthington-Evans, May 1921, CP.2925 and CP.2992, CAB 24/123. Note by Wilson and Memo by the GS, May 1921, CID 139-Q Remarks by CAS, May 1921, CID 141 -C; Observations by Balfour, 26 July 1921, CID 149-C; CAB 5/4. 139th CID, 27 May 1921, CAB 2/3. Meeting in CAS' Room, 27 June 1921; Trenchard to AOC Middle E., 11 July 1921; Trenchard to Salmond, 21 July 1921; AIR 5/476. Gilbert, Winston Churchill, TV 802. Memo by Churchill, 4 Aug. 1921, CP.3197, CAB 24/126. Memo by Worthington-Evans, 17 Aug. 1921, CP.3240, CAB 24/127. C.70(21)5, 18 Aug. 1921, CAB 23/26. Ranger, 'Connexions Between "Primary Resistance" Movements and Modem Mass Nationalism in East and Central Africa' (I), 441-3. Sluglett, Britain in Iraq, 29-44,6873. Gilbert, Winston Churchill, IV 596, 799, Companion ii 1188. Memo by GS, 19 Feb. 1921, CP.2067, CAB 24/120. Note on Political Developments in Mesopotamia after 1 Oct. 1921, CP.3273A, CAB 24/127. Gilbert, Winston Churchill, IV 576-7. Note by Churchill, 18 March 1921, CP.2751,

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N O T E S TO pp. 28-35

22

23 24 25 26 27 28 29

30 31 32 33 34

35 36

37

38

CAB 24/121. Memo by Churchill, c. March 1921, CP.2815; Cairo Conference Report, 12 to 30 March 1921, CP.2866,- CAB 24/122. Confec. 89, 11 April 1921, CAB 23/25. Samuel to Colonial Secretary, 9 April 1924, AIR 5/275(1). Memoby Worthington-Evans, 120ct. 1921, CP. 3395, CAB 24/128. Future Control of Mesopotamia, Oct. 1921, CP.3445; The Military Situation in Iraq, Oct. 1921, CP.3640; Memoby Worthington-Evans, 21 Nov 1921; CAB 24/129. Note by Wilson, Sept. 1921, CID 150-C; Note by Beatty, 7 Oct. 1921, CID 153-Q CAB 5/4. Waldie, Ph.D. thesis, 27. Gilbert, Winston Churchill, TV 768. Treasury Circular, 31 May 1921, CO 732/3/27065. Treasury Estimates Circular, 1 Oct. 1921, CO 732/3/49128. Minute by Trenchard, 170ct. 1921,CID 151-C,CAB5/4.TrenchardtoGeddes,3Nov. 1921; Development of Mechanical Warfare in Relation to Manpower, c. Nov. 1921; AIR 8/42. Gilbert, Winston Churchill, TV 770. Gilbert cites no evidence for this view. Interim Report of Committee on National Expenditure, Dec. 1921, CP.3570, CAB 24/ 131. Committee Established to Examine Part I of the Geddes Report, CP.3692, CAB 24/ 132. Memoby Worthington-Evans, 4 Feb. 1922,CID 159-C,CAB5/4andCP.3681,CAB24/ 132. Sluglett, Britain in Iraq, 76-8. Haldane to Churchill, 27 March 1922,CP.3941,CAB24/ 136. C. 12(22)2.21 Feb. 1922, CAB 23/29. Conference of Ministers, 28 Aug. 1922, CAB 23/31. Iraq Treaty Correspondence, CP.4178, CAB 24/138. High Commissioner to Colonial Secretary, 10 Oct. 1922, CP.4274, CAB 24/139. Memos by Worthington-Evans, 8 Feb. 1922, CP.3708, CAB 24/133; 15 March 1922, CP.3847, CAB 24/134; 5 Oct. 1922, CP.4192, CAB 24/138. C.19(22(, 20 March 1922, CAB 23/29. Gilbert, Winston Churchill, IV 817. Sluglett, Britain in Iraq, 79. Trenchard to Ellington, 30 Oct. 1922 and 15 Jan. 1923, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/177. Trenchard to John Salmond, 9,10 and 27 Nov. and 6 Dec. 1922, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/138. Lunt, Imperial Sunset, 34. Dobbs to Trenchard, 21 Feb. 1924, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/173. Appendix A to Memo by Hoare, 5 Dec. 1922, CP.4339, CAB 24/140. Note by Colonial Secretary Circulating Telegram from High Commissioner dated 22 October 1922, CP.4295, CAB 24/139. Waldie, Ph.D. thesis, 135-6. AS Memo, 16 Nov. 1922, CP.4309, CAB 24/140. Iraq Command Report, Oct. 1922 to April 1924, AIR 5/1253. Trenchard to Salmond, 27 Feb. 1923, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/138. Despatch by Dobbs and Memo by Thomas, 10 Jan. 1924, CP.94(24), CAB 24/ 164. Trenchard to Salmond, 28 Feb. and 20 March 1923, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/138. Iraq Committee, 23 March 1923, CP. 167(23), CAB 24/159. C.22(23), 26 April 1923, CAB 23/45. Waldie, Ph.D. thesis, 83-98. Trenchard to John Salmond, 6 June 1923, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/138. Notes by C. LI. Bullock, 11 June 1923, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/58. Memo by Derby, 28 June 1923, CP.296(23), CAB 24/160. Memo by Hoare and Comments by AS, 5 July 1923, CP.310(23), CAB 24/161. C.35(23)3, 9 July 1923, CAB 23/46. Waldie, Ph.D. thesis, 75-83.145th CID, 14 Oct. 1921; 147th CID, 31 Oct. 1921; 148th CID, 9 Nov. 1921; 153rd CID, 6 Dec. 1921; 157th CID, 24 May 1922; 158th CID, 5 July 1922; CAB 2/3. Note by Guest, Oct. 1921 and Paper by AS, Jan. 1921, CID 156-C, CAB 5/4. C. 18(22), 15 March 1922, CAB 23/29. C.43(22)18, 3 Aug. 1922, CAB 23/30. C.25(23)l,9M ay 1923, CAB 23/45. C.32(23(l, 20 June 1923, CAB 23/46. C.14(24)6,18 Feb. 1924, CAB 23/47. Sluglett, Britain in Iraq, 85-6. Memo by Thomas, 7 Feb 1924 covering Despatch by Dobbs, 10 Jan. 1924, CP.94(24), CAB 24/164. Memo by Thomas, 5 March 1924, CP. 159(24), CAB 24/165. Memo by Chamberlain, 2 April 1924, CP.194(24), CAB 24/ 172.9th COS, 14 May 1924, CAB 53/1. Iraq Command Report, April 1924 to Nov. 1926, Ch. 19, AIR 5/1254. Memo by Hoare, 17 Oct. 1925, including Appreciation by AOC

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N O T E S TO pp. 35-44 Iraq, CID 637-B, CAB 4/13. 39 Note by Dobbs, 26 March 1925, AIR 2/1105. Memo by Amery, 11 May 1925, CP.235(25); Memo by Hoare, 14May 1925, CP.244(25), CAB 24/173. C.44(25)3,7Aug. 1925, CAB 23/50. 40 Waldie, PhD. thesis, 104-5. Casey to Bruce, 20 Aug. 1925 and 19 Nov. 1925, Hudson and North (eds.) My Dear PM, 73, 107. 203rd CID, 15 Oct. 1925; 207th CID, 11 Dec. 1925; CAB 2/4. Memo by PM, 11 Dec. 1925, CP.523|25), CAB 24/176. Trenchard to Colwyn, 28 Oct. 1925, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/102. Trenchard to Ellington, 26 Nov.and29Dec. 1925, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/178. Memo by Thomson, 16Dec. 1929, CP.365|29), CAB 24/207. 41 Casey to Bruce, 8 Oct. and 12 Nov. 1925, Hudson and North (eds.), My Dear PM, 87, 106. Gilbert, Winston Churchill, IV 208-11,529,900-1, Companion ii, 1288-9,1341. Chetwode to Wilson, 21 Feb. 1921, Jeffery (ed.), The Wilson Letters, 238. Ferris, Ph.D. thesis, 103-4. 42 Sluglett, Britain in Iraq, passim. The figures are given on p.127. Townshend, Britain’s Civil Wars, 99. Memo by Hoare, 18 Feb. 1927, CP.62(27), CAB 24/185. Churchill, The World Crisis: The Aftermath, Appendix, 461-6.

Chapter Three 1 Edmonds, 'Air Strategy'.

2 Clayton, The British Empire as a Superpower, 99; Wilson to Rawlinson, 5 April 1921,

3

4 5 6 7

8 9 10 11

Jeffery (ed.), Wilson Letters, 253. Memo by Tromp, 19 Jan. 1920; Memo by Geddes, 23 Jan. 1920; Memo by L of F, 26 Jan. 1920; AIR 5/25. The air force is occasionally mentioned in Jeffery and Hennessy, States of Emergency. Fredette, The First Battle of Britain, 167; Townshend, Britain's Civil Wars, 44. Work of RAF in Railway Strike, 1919, AIR 5/44. Memo by Trenchard, 9 Jan. 1920; Churchill to Trenchard, 11 Jan. 1920; Revised Memo by Trenchard, 14 Jan. 1920,- Memo by Churchill, 15 April 1920; AIR 5/340. Memo by Trenchard, c. April 1920; Minute by Churchill, 23 April 1920; AS Memo, May 1920; Minute by Webster, 25 June 1921 ; Use of Aircraft in Aid of Civil Power, Sept. 1921; AIR 2/1097. Orders for RAF in Event of Industrial Unrest, Nov. 1921, AIR 5/25. CAS Papers on General Strike, AIR 8/84. Clayton, The British Empire as a Superpower, 512. Townshend, The British Campaign in Ireland, 170-1; Britain's Civil Wars, 64; Clayton, The British Empire as a Superpower, 84,92; Killingray, 'A Swift Agent of Gov­ ernment', 432. Gilbert, Winston Churchill, Companion IV, ii, 1215-16, 1340-1. WO Memo, 27 July 1920, CID 255-B, CAB 4/7. Hankey to PM, 28 May 1920, Hankey Papers CAB 63/27. Résumés of Operations by No. 11 (Irish) Wing, Nov. 1920 to Jan. 1921, Feb. 1921, April 1921, May 1921, AIR 5/214. Gilbert, Winston Churchill, IV, 455-6. Bonham-Carter to Air Ministry, 11 Aug. 1920; Macready to Air Ministry, 18 Aug. 1920,- AIR 2/1097. Townshend, The British Campaign in Ireland, 9. Undated Memo by CAS, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/139. C.15 (21), 24 March 1921, CAB 23/24. GS 6th Division to OC RAF Fermoy, 18 April 1921, AIR 5/773. Operations 11 (Irish) Wing, April and June 1921, AIR 5/775. Gilbert, Winston Churchill, IV, 562-4,624. Congreve to Wilson, 1 April 1920, Jeffery (ed.), The Wilson Letters, 156. Palestine, Report of the Royal Commission, 1936, Ch. VI, Part 2, CP. 163 (37), CAB 24/270. Gilbert, Winston Churchill, IV, 478,484,571,585,619,624,638,659, Companion, IV, ii, 1353-4,1367. Clayton, The British Empire as a Superpower, 138. Palestine, Report of the Royal Commission, 1936, CP. 163(37), CAB 24/270. Memo by Churchill, Nov. 1921, CP.3515, CAB 24/131. Conclusions of a Conference of Ministers, 21 Dec. 1921, WO 32/5840. High Commissioner's Views on Policy, Enclosure H, 17 Jan. 1930, CP. 108(30), CAB 24/211. Conference in CAS' Room, 17 May 1923, AIR 5/286.

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N O T E S TO pp. 45-52 12 Plumer to Amery, 6 May 1926, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/38. High Commissioner's Views on Policy, Enclosure II, 17 Jan. 1930, CP. 108(30), CAB 24/211. Palestine, Report of the Royal Commission, 1936, CP. 163(37), CAB 24/270. Reports by Playfair and Dobbie, AIR 5/1243. 13 Report by COS, 20 Dec. 1929, CID 339-C, CAB 5/7. (Also CP.36(30), CAB 24/209). Palestine, Garrison and Responsibility for Public Security, CID 345-C; Report of Passfield Subcommittee, 27 June 1930, CID 348-C; CAB 5/7.249th CID, 14 July 1930, and 257th CID, 8 Nov. 1932, CAB 2/5. C.46(30), 30 July 1930, CAB 23/64. 14 Palestine, Report of the Royal Commission, 1936, CP. 163(37), CAB 24/270. 15 Palestine Situation, August 1936, CP.225(36), CAB 24/263. C.56(36)8 and Appendix III, 2 Sept. 1936, CAB 23/85. Abridged Despatch by Peirse, AIR 5/1244. Brooke-Popham to Air Ministry, 3 Sept. 1936; Peirse to Air Ministry, 5 Sept. 1936,- Brooke-Popham Papers II/8. Lees to his father, 14 June and 22 Aug. 1936, Lees Papers 1/1. BrookePopham to Dill, 20 Oct. 1936, Dill Papers WO 282/3. 16 Wauchope to Colonial Secretary, 27 March 1937, CP. 109(37), CAB 24/269. Report by Wavell on Operations in Palestine and Transjordan, 12 Sept. 1937 to 31 March 1937, AIR 5/1244. Charters, The British Army and Jewish Insurgency in Palestine. 17 For instructions on the use of air power against Indian rioters see AIR 2/1057. 18 Report of Subcommittee on Indian Military Requirements, 22 June 1922, CID 125-D, CAB 6/4. Report by Salmond, Aug. 1922, Salmond Papers B2590. Air Ministry to India Office, 23 June 1922, AIR 5/183. Salmond to Trenchard, 22 June, 3,21 and 26 July 1922, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/138. Salmond Diary, 12 July 1922, Salmond Papers B2619. Memo by Rawlinson, undated, Salmond Papers B2611. 19 Action Taken by AS and AOC India in Connection with the Employment of Aircraft on the Frontier; Game to Trenchard, 31 May 1923; AIR 5/248. Charnier to Trenchard, 17 July 1923,18 March 1925, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/159. Ellington to Trenchard, 17 Feb. 1925; Trenchard to Ellington, 9 March 1925 and 6 April 1925; Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/178. Report by Ellington, 23 June 1925, Report by Jacob, Ch. 11, AIR 5/1321. 20 Undated Memo by Trenchard, c. July 1925, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/178. Memo by Hoare, 14 Jan. 1929, CP.4(29), CAB 24/201. Reports by W. G. H. Salmond, Chs 12 and 13, AIR 5/1231. Memo by Trenchard, CP.332(29), CAB 24/207. Report by CID Defence of India Subcommittee, 2 Oct. 1930, CP.324(30), CAB 24/215. 258th CID, 6 April 1933, CAB 2/5. 21 Waldie, Ph.D. thesis, 171-3. Report of Subcommittee on Indian Military Require­ ments, 26 Jan. 1923, CID 130-D, CAB 6/4. Report by Steel, Ch. 20, AIR 5/1322. Minute by Darvall, 23 Feb. 1937; Tottenham to AOC India, 8 March 1937; Higher Direction of Indian Defence, 4 July 1939,- Notes on Certain Defects in the Position of the AOC, 5 July 1939; AIR 2/655. Harris to DCAS, 26 Nov. 1935, AIR 2/1294. Killingray, 'Swift Agent of Government', 439-40. 22 Waldie, Ph.D. thesis, 208-213.241st COS, 21 June 1938, CAB 53/9. Reports on Indian Defence, May to July 1938, CP. 187(38), CAB 24/278. Report of the Expert Committee, 30 Jan. 1939, CP. 133(39), CAB 24/287. C.34(39)3, 28 June 1939, CAB 23/100. 23 Gavin, Aden Under British Rule, 250-62. Colonial Office Memo, 24 Aug. 1933, CP.210(33), CAB 24/243. COS Report 53, 8 Nov. 1926, CP.377(26), CAB 24/182. 24 Gavin, Aden Under Bri tish Rule, 262-69. Salmond to Trenchard, c. March 1921;GOC Aden to WO, 15 Feb. 1923; AIR 2/1046. Trenchard to Ellington, 29 May 1922, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/177. Scott to CO, 23 June 1923; Air Ministry to CO, 13 June 1925; AIR 2/1018. RAF Operations, Aden, Chs 1-4, AIR 5/1299. Reilly to Colonial Secretary, 10 June 1925; Stewart to Colonial Secretary, 5 Aug. 1925; Saundby to RAF Middle E, c. Aug. 1925; AIR 2/1019. 25 Gavin, Aden Under British Rule, 280-2. CO Memo, 18 Oct. 1926; COS Report, 8 Nov. 1926; CP.377(26), CAB 24/182. C.66(26)4, 16 Dec. 1926, CAB 23/53. Trenchard to Hoare, 1 Feb. 1927, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/204.226th CID, 5 May 1927, CAB 2/ 5. Treasury Committee Report, 7 July 1927, CID 156-D, CAB 6/5. McClaughry to Trenchard, 20 March 1927, AIR 2/1047. C.52(27)9, 26 Oct. 1927, CAB 23/55. 26 Gavin, Aden Under British Rule, 283-5. Note by Hoare, 28 March 1928, CP.104(28), CAB 24/194. C. 16(28)4,28 March 1928, CAB 23/57.234th CID, 29 March 1928; 235th

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30 31 32 33 34

35 36

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38

CID, 22 May 1928,- CAB 2/5. C.32(28)l, 13 lune 1928, CAB 23/58. Memo by Hoare, 14 Jan. 1929, CP.4(29), CAB 24/201. Hankey to Trenchard, 19 Oct. 1928, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/133. Gavin, Aden Under British Rule, 295-7. Waldie, Ph.D. thesis, 151-3. Disturbances in Aden, May 1932, CP.232(32), CAB 24/231. C.50(33)5, Appendix, 5 Sept. 1933, CAB 23/ 77. 264th CID, 31 May 1934, CAB 2/6. Various documents in AIR 2/1294. Killingray, 'Swift Agent of Government', 430. Trenchard to Geddes, c. Nov. 1921, AIR 8/42. Appreciation of RAF Operations, Egyptian Interior Ministry, 16 Feb. 1922, AIR 5/1097. Odd Notes on Substitution, 21 June 1932, Bottomley Papers B2254. The Somaliland Disturbances, Feb. to March 1922, CP.3936, CAB 24/136. Report on RAF Detachment, Somaliland, 22 Dec. 1925; Air Ministry to CO, 14 April 1926; AIR 2/1047. Treasury to Air Ministry, 28 Dec. 1929; Minute by DDOI to DCAS, 29 June 1931; AIR 2/1281. Draft Scheme for Air Control in Somaliland, March 1930, AIR 5/ 1422. OC H Unit to AOC Middle E, 10 June 1920, AIR 20/680. Provision of Air Force Unit for Sudan, AIR 2/1460. 215th CID, 22 July 1926; 220th CID, 15 Feb. 1927; CAB 2/4. Mahdism in the Sudan, CID 751-B, CP. 194(27), CAB 24/187. Maffey to Lloyd, 12 April 1927; Memo by Hoare, 22 July 1927; 228th CID, 7 July 1927; CP. 194(27), CAB 24/187. C.40(27)l, 13 July 1927, CAB 23/55. Operations in the Sudan, Dec. 1927 to Feb. 1928, CID 903-B, CAB 4/18. Killingray, 'Swift Agent of Government', 437. Memo by Maffey, 20 June 1928, CID 904-B; Use of the Air Arm in Sudan, CID 911-B and CID 915-B; CAB 4/18. 239th CID, 13 Dec. 1928; 243rd CID, 27 June 1929; 245th CID, 14 Nov. 1929,- 249th CID, 14 July 1930; CAB 2/5. Trenchard to Secretary of State, 21 June 1929, AIR 2/1460. Memo by Trenchard, Nov. 1929, CP.332(29), CAB 24/207. Slessor to DDOI, Feb. 1930, AIR 9/61. AS Note in Amplification of Section IV of Trenchard's Memo on the Fuller Employment of Air Power (CP.332(29)), 10 March 1930, AIR 9/59. Killingray, 'Swift Agent of Government', 441. Report by Harris, April 1932; Report by Atcherley, 1 May 1932; AIR 2/1519. Report by Harris, 7 March 1932; Minute by Harris to CAS and DCAS, 20 July 1933; AIR 9/59. Jardine's 'anti-air' book was The Mad Mullah of Somaliland, (1923). Killingray, 'Swift Agent of Government', 442. Lewin to Harris, 21 Nov. 1933, AIR 9/ 59. Report by Norman and Newall, 7 March 1934; Cunliffe-Lister to Londonderry, 26 March 1934; Conference of East African Governors, Jan. 1935; WO Memo c. June 1935; Minute by Harris, 3 July 1935; AIR 2/691. Clayton, The British Empire as a Superpower, 429. Killingray, 'Swift Agent of Government', 442-3. Harris to Howard, 7 Sept. 1935; Minute from CAS to DCAS, 6 Oct. 1937; AIR 2/691.

Chapter Four 1 Slessor, Air Control: The Other Point of View, May 1931, Bottomley Papers B.2241. Sholto Douglas to HQ RAF Middle East, 10 Feb. 1932, AIR 20/686. AS Memo, 2 May 1924, CID 491-B, CAB 4/11. Note by Wilson, Sept. 1921, CID 150-C, CAB 5/4 2 Waldie, Ph.D. thesis, 53-4, 57-8, 62. Trenchard's Scheme for the Defence of Mesopo­ tamia, 12 March 1921, CP.3123, CAB 24/126. Correspondence between Air Ministry, WO and CO, 25 June to 17 Oct. 1921, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/36. 3 Waldie, Ph.D. thesis, 53, 56, 68. Longmore to AOC Iraq, 13 June 1924, AIR 23/575B. Memo by Worthington-Evans, 4 Feb. 1922, CP.3681, CAB 24/132. Conference of Ministers, 9 Feb. 1922, CAB 23/29. 4 Ferris, Ph.D. thesis, 97-103. 5 McClaughry, 'The Gordon-Shephard Memorial Prize Essay, 1929'. Burnett to Air Ministry, 12 March 1933, AIR 5/1212. RAF Aden to Air Ministry, 30 Aug. and 6 Sept. 1929; AOC Iraq to Air Ministry, 23 March 1929; AIR 5/445. General Instructions,

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6

7 8

9

10 11

12

13

14

15

16

Operations, Palestine and Transjordan, 29 Aug. 1928, AIR 5/203 (IV). Rees to Air Ministry, 14 Feb. 1928, AIR 5/203 (m). Salmond to Trenchard, 21 Nov. 1921, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/138. Webb-Bowen to Trenchard, 4 May 1927; Rees to RAF HQ Middle E., 22 Jan. 1928; AIR 5/203 (ffl). Minute by DDOI to CAS, 8 Jan. 1929; OC British Forces, Aden to Air Ministry, 22 April 1929; AIR 5/445. Monthly War Diary, No. 3 ACC, Basrah, AIR 5/838. Despatch from HC Palestine, 17 Jan. 1930, CID 345-C, CAB 5/7. Armoured Car Action Near Suweileh (Transjordan), 16 Sept. 1923, AIR 5/1243. Memo by GS, 9 Feb. 1922, CP.3717, CAB 24/ 133. Gilbert, Winston Churchill, Companion IV ii 1045. Townshend, Britain's Civil Wars, 25, 32, 70. Memo by Londonderry, 27 Oct. 1932, CID 379-C, CAB 5/7. The Iraq Levies, a favourite topic of mine, are the subject of my article 'Britain, the Assyrians and the Iraq Levies, 1919-1932'. The documentary evidence upon which I have relied is too copious to list here in detail, and readers who wish to follow up the subject are advised to consult the notes to this piece. Broadly speaking I have used the following classes of documents at the PRO: FO 371, CAB 5, CAB 23, CAB 24, AIR 2, AIR 5, AIR 23, CO 730. Also the Brooke-Popham, Lees and Trenchard Papers. Lunt, Imperial Sunset, and Stafford, The Tragedy of the Assyrians, are both worth looking at. Sluglett, Britain in Iraq. Note by Jaafar Pasha al-Askari, 12 Nov. 1920, AIR 23/439. Fraser to WO, 1 Aug. 1922, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/36. Trenchard to Salmond, 20 March 1923; Personal Minute by Meinertzhagen, 10 Sept. 1923; Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/138. Salmond Diary, 24 June 1923, Salmond Papers AC 71/20. Memo by Hoare, 14 Jan. 1925, CP.16 (25) CAB 24/171. Conference at Palace, 25 Oct. 1924, AIR 2/1451. Memo by Hoare, 14 May 1925, CP.244 (25) CAB 24/173. C.26 (25) 3, 20 May 1925, CAB 23/50. Gilbert, Winston Churchill, TV558,632-5,647,868. Townshend, Britain's Civil Wars, 60, 91-2. Wilson to Secretary of State for War, 10 Dec. 1921, WO 32/5840. Further Reductions of Palestine Garrison, 1923-24, AIR 5/286. Symes, Tour of Duty, 56-7. Townshend, Britain's Civil Wars, 92, 100. Palestine, Garrison and Responsibility for Public Security, Enclosures 4 and 5, CID 345-C, CAB 5/7. Gerrard to Trenchard, 24 April 1925; Trenchard to Gerrard, 12 Sept. 1925,Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/191. Plumer to Trenchard, 24 Sept. 1925; Trenchard to Plumer, 5 and 16 Oct. 1925; Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/38. Quai d'Orsay, Affaires Politiques, Jérusalem, Bulletins de Renseignements de l'Officier de Liaison, Carton 197, No. 165, 26 Jan 1926 and No. 181. Report by Playfair on the Palestine Riots, Aug. to Sept. 1929, AIR 5/1243. Trenchard to Hankey, 28 Oct. 1929, Trenchard Papers MFC 57/1/133. Situation in Palestine, COS 212, CAB 53/20. Palestine, Garrison and Reponsibility for Public Security, CID 345C; Memo by Londonderry, 27 Oct. 1932, CID 379-C; Memo by Freeman, 22 Jan. 1932, Memo by Wauchope, 23 July 1932, Memo by Colonial Secretary, Oct. 1932, CID 380C; CAB 5/7. Lunt, Imperial Sunset, Chs 2 and 3. Responsibility for Defence of Transjordan, 1922 to 1925, AIR 5/275 (I). Palestine, Garrison and Responsibility for Public Security, CID 345-C, CAB 5/7. Quai d'Orsay, Affaires Politiques, Jérusalem, Bulletins de Renseigne­ ments de l'Officier de Liaison, Carton 197, No. 168, 1 March 1926. Lunt, Imperial Sunset, Ch. 2. Symes to Amery, 29 July 1927, CIR 5/203 (HI). Memo by CID Oversea Subcommittee, 29 Oct. 1929, CP.323 (29), CAB 24/207.84th COS, 4 Nov. 1929, CAB 53/3. 245th CID, 14 Nov. 1929, CAB 2/5. C.51 (29) 10,3 Dec. 1929, CAB 23/62. Gavin,Aden Under British Rule, 286,295. Trenchard to Samuel Wilson, 25 Nov. 1926; Air Ministry to AOC RAF Middle E, 6 Jan 1927; AIR 5/423 (I). Report by COS, 8 Nov. 1926, CP.377 (26), CAB 24. Portal to Air Ministry, 2 May 1934, AIR 2/533. Air Ministry to Treasury, March 1928, AIR 2/417. Report by Boyd, 31 Oct. 1933, AIR 5/1299. Gavin, Aden Under British Rule, 290-1,298.235th CID, 22 May 1928, CAB 2/5. Report of Committee on Aden Police Force, 5 June 1928, CP.175 (28) CAB 24/195. C.31 (28) 4, 6 June 1928, CAB 23/58.

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N O T E S TO pp. 70-79 17 Killingray, 'A Swift Agent of Government', 439. Clayton, The British Empire as a Superpower, 288. Clayton, however, appears to contradict this statement on p.381. Wilson to Rawlinson, 12 July 1921, Jeffery (ed.), The Wilson Letters, 283. Richards, Portal of Hungerford, 107. 18 Waldie, Ph.D. thesis, Chs 4 and 10. 19 RAF Cooperation in Kurdistan, March to June 1923, Ch. 10, AIR 5/1253. E. Command Air Cooperation Course, 1936, Bottomley Papers B.2285. Reconnaissance of Bir Natrun and Merga, 19 Nov. to 13 Dec. 1931, AIR 20/686. Lee, Never Stop the Engine, 115-16. 20 For the Koicol operations see various documents in Ch 10, AIR 5/1253. Lee, Never Stop the Engine, 60-1. Souforce Operations, 14 June to 2 Sept. 1932, AIR 5/1244. 21 Transport of Troops from Kingerban to Kirkuk, Feb. 1923, Ch. 9; Transport of Troops to Outbreak of Assyrian Levies at Kirkuk, May 1924, Ch 12; AIR 5/1253. AS Memo, 17 July 1930, CID 1005-B, CAB 4/20. Report by Lochner, c. Sept. 1929, AIR 5/1243. Transport of Northants. Regt from Egypt to Iraq, June 1932, Ch. 35, AIR 5/1255. Memo by Hoare, 30 Jan. 1929, CP.19 (29), CAB 24/201. 22 Ellington to Trenchard, 19 Aug. and 3 Feb. 1923; Trenchard to Ellington, 25 Jan. 1923; Pitcher to Trenchard, 23 April 1923; Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/177. Reports by Harris, 5 May 1923 and John Salmond, 22 May 1923, Ch. 10, AIR 5/1253. AS Memo, 17 July 1930, CID 1005-B, CAB 4/20. 23 McClaughry, 'The Gordon-Shephard Memorial Prize Essay, 1929', 462-3. Monthly War Diary, No. 4 ACC, Sept. 1923 to June 1924, AIR 5/839. General Instruction, Op­ erations, Transjordan, AS Memo, 29 Aug. 1928, AIR 5/203 (IV). Report by McEwen, 16 Aug. 1924, AIR 5/1243. 24 Operations in Waziristan, 16 Jan. to 15 Sept. 1937, Bottomley Papers B.2288. 25 Air Cooperation with Koicol, 10 May 1923, Ch. 10, AIR 5/1253. Carr, You Are Not Sparrows, 81-2. Operations Against Zeidis, July to Oct. 1925, Ch. 4, AIR 5/1299. Operations Against Transjordan Raiders, 1 June 1929 to 31 May 1930, AIR 5/1244. 26 Despatch by Peirse on Palestine Disturbances, April, to Sept. 1936; Military Lessons of the Rebellion in Palestine,- AIR 5/1244. Dill to Courtney, 28 Sept. 1936, Dill Papers WO 282/4. 27 Waldie, Ph.D. thesis, 299. Lees to Mrs Lees, 26 Feb. 1924, Lees Papers 1/1. Operations Against Huwaitat Raiders Near Rutbah, June 1927, Ch. 21, AIR 5/1254. Air Coopera­ tion with Koicol, Appendix E; Report by Vincent, 29 April 1923; Ch. 10, AIR 5/1253. 28 Till, Air Power and the Royal Navy; Roskill, Naval Policy Between the Wars. 29 137th CID, 6 May 1921, CAB 2/3. 178th CID, 19 Dec. 1923, CAB 2/4. Trenchard to Hoare, 23 Dec. 1924; Hoare to Trenchard, 25 Dec. 1924; AIR 2/1447. Memo by Trenchard, 18 March 1925, COS 14, CAB 53/12. 30 Remarks by the NS, COS 17,15 May 1925, CAB 53/12.20th COS, 23 June 1925; 21st COS, 3 July 1925,- 34th COS, 22 June 1926; CAB 53/1. Second Interim Report of CID Subcommittee on Singapore, 23 Oct. 1925, CID 253-Q Report by COS, 9 July 1926,CAB 5/6. 205th CID, 17 Nov. 1925; 215th CID, 22 July 1926; CAB 2/4. C.50 (26) 1, 8 Aug. 1926. 31 Memo by the Joint Oversea and Home Defence Subcommittee of the CID, 23 Nov. 1927, CID 308-C, CAB 5/6.231st CID, 19 Dec. 1927; 234th CID, 29 March 1928,- CAB 2/5. Interim Report on the Coast Defence Practices Held in 1928,8 May 1929, COS 78; 76th COS, 14 Jan. 1929,- CAB 53/3. Extract from Draft Minutes of 239th CID, 13 Dec. 1928, CP.401(28), CAB 24/199. Note by Hankey, 14 Feb. 1929, CID 331-C, CAB 5/7. 32 78th COS, 11 June 1929, CAB 53/3. Report by COS, 15 July 1929, CID 336-C, CAB 5/ 7. Bombing Trials Against HMS Centurion, Sept. 1929, COS 243, CAB 53/21. Interim Report of Special Committee on Coast Defence Requirements, 29 Oct. 1929, COS 201, CAB 53/17. 33 The Fuller Employment of Air Power in Imperial Defence, Nov. 1929, CP.332 (29), CAB 24/207. Report of Baldwin Committee, 24 May 1932, CID 370-C, CAB 5/7.256th CID, 9 June 1932, CAB 2/5. Memo by CAS, 10 April 1933, CP. 102 (33), CAB 24/240. Annual Review by COS, 12 Oct. 1933, CID 113-B, CAB 4/22. Neidpath's study of The Singapore Naval Base is excellent.

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N O T E S TO pp. 80-94 34 Gavin, Aden Under British Rule, 281-2. Memo by Trenchard, 12 May 1926, CID 273C, CAB 5/6. The Fuller Employment of Air Power in Imperial Defence, Nov. 1929, CP.332 (29), CAB 24/207. 35 My discussion of the Red Sea slave trade is based on correspondence in AIR 2/775 and AIR 2/776, Use of Aircraft for Prevention of Red Sea Slave Trade. The documents are too numerous to list individually. 36 The Fuller Employment of Air Power in Imperial Defence, Nov. 1929, CP.332 (29), CAB 24/207.

Chapter Five 1 The starting point for this chapter is the classic work of Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, especially Preface to first edition. A number of Braudel's lectures and articles, including the famous longue durée are collected in On History. M. Aymard et a l, Lire Braudel, is a useful recent assessment of his work. The article by J. H. Hexter, 'Fernand Braudel and the Monde Braudellien', is an outstanding critique. See also Ladurie, T h e "Event" and the "Long Term" in Social History: The Case of the Chouan Uprising', in The Territory of the Historian, Ch. 7. 2 Sluglett, Britain in Iraq, 1-2. 3 Braudel, The Mediterranean, I 38-9; Gavin, Aden Under British Rule, 303; EvansPritcard, The Nuer, especially 150-4. 4 W. S. Douglas, 'A Floatplane Tour in the Southern Sudan'; Townshend, Britain 's Civil Wars, 195. 5 W. S. Douglas, 'A Floatplane Tour in the Southern Sudan', 215; Evans-Pritchard, The Nuer, 51-4. Report on Reconaissance of Lower Zeraf Island, A. P. Ritchie (AIO, GS, SDF) AIR 20/684. 6 Townshend, Britain's Civil Wars, 195. Operations in Sudan Dec. 1927 to Feb. 1928, Governor-General, Sudan to HC, Egypt, 22 March 1928, CID 903-B; Use of Air Arm in Sudan, AS Memo, 10 Oct. 1928, CID 911-B; both in CAB 4/18. 7 Gavin, Aden Under British Rule, 2; Lee, Fly Past, 51-2. 8 Braudel, The Mediterranean, I 27-40; Lacoste, 'Braudel Géographe', 184; Le Roy Ladurie, Montaillou, 90. 9 Townshend, Britain's Civil Wars, 150; Callwell, Small Wars, 286-7. AS Note on Situation in SW Arabia, Oct. 1926, AIR 5/423. 10 Air Power and Imperial Defence, Memo by AS, 17 July 1930, Appendix IV, CID 1005B, CAB 4/20. Swann to Air Ministry, 22 Dec. 1925, AIR 5/423 (I). Maj. T. C. Fowle (Acting Political Resident, Aden) to Colonial Secretary, 28 Sept. 1927, Ch. 5, AIR 5/ 1299. 11 Glubb, War in the Desert, 24; Embry, Mission Completed, 45. 12 Cole, Imperial Military Geography, 3-4; Callwell, Small Wars, 59-61. Souforce Operations, 14 June to 2 Sept. 1932, AIR 5/1244. 13 Hourani, Syria and Lebanon, 69. Control of Mesopotamia, undated, c. spring 1920, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/36. Situation in Nejd, L. Rees (OC Transjordan and Palestine) to Govt Offices, Jerusalem, 29 Feb. 1928, AIR 5/203 (IV). Political Resident, Persian Gulf, to AOC Iraq, 14 March 1932, AIR 2/1283. 14 Air Action in Transjordan, 1June 1929 to 31 May 1930; Air Action in Transjordan, 1 June to 30 Nov. 1930; Souforce Opertions, 14 June to 2 Sept. 1932; all in AIR 5/1244. Palestine and Transjordan, General Defence Scheme, 1931, AIR 5/1250. G. S. Symes to Colonial Secretary, 29 July 1927, AIR 5/203 (in). 15 Glubb, War in the Desert, 25-6. 16 Administration of Air Control in Undeveloped Countries, AS Memo, 1 Jan. 1929, AIR 20/674. Gavin, Aden Under British Rule, 275-82. 17 Lecture to Boys at Marlborough by N. H. Bottomley, c.1931, Bottomley Papers B2240. Use of Air Arm in Sudan, AS Memo, 10 Oct 1928, CID 911-B, CAB 4/18. 18 Sluglett, Britain in Iraq, 268-9; Townshend, Britain's Civil Wars, 197,- Townshend,

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19

20 21

22 23

24 25 26

27

28 29 30 31 32 33

34

35

'Civilization and Frightfulness', 156-7. NW Frontier of India, Memo by Montague, 30 April 1920, CID 115-D, CAB 6/4. Papers for Use of COS, Section 3, Memo by India Office, 1 June 1930, CID 1008-B, CAB 4/20. Conduct of Small Wars with Particular Reference to Air Control, N. H. Bottomley, 9 Oct. 1933, Bottomley Papers B2271. Memo by W/Co. Reid for GS SDF, 18 Dec. 1928, AIR 20/682. Certain Aspects of the Indian Flight, Memo by SS Air, 18 Feb. 1927, CP.62 (27), CAB 24/185. Bond, Victorian Military Campaigns, 20-1. Burchall, 'Aerial Cooperation with Survey, Mapmaking and Exploring Expeditions'; Smithies, 'The Civilizing Influence of Aircraft and of Imperial Air Communications', 444-5. Lecture to Boys at Marlborough by N. H. Bottomley, c. 1931, Bottomley Papers B2240. Lee, Never Stop the Engine, 107-8. Small Wars with Particular Reference to Air Control, G. C. Pirie, 6 Oct. 1931, Bottomley Papers B2256. Lacoste, 'Braudel Géogra­ phe', 180-1. AOC RAF Middle E. to Air Ministry, 12 Aug. 1925,- Resident Aden to DDOI Air Ministry, 10 Aug 1925; Acting Resident Aden to Colonial Secretary, 10 June 1925; all in AIR 2/1019. Gavin, Aden Under British Rule, 269, 272. Operations Against Turks, July to Sept. 1921, Ch. 5, AIR 5/1253. OC RAF Fit Aden to HQ RAF Middle East, 30 Aug. 1925, AIR 2/1019. Operations Against Hamuni Tribe, Feb 1938, Ch. 22, AIR 5/1299. Air Operations, Jan. to March 1932, AIR 2/1284. Stark, The Southern Gates of Arabia, 185. Operations at Gedaref, Sudan, March 1932, AIR 20/ 688 . Paret and Howard (eds.), Clausewitz on War. OC RAF Fit, Aden to HQ RAF Middle E., 30 Aug. 1925, AIR 2/1019. Vincent, Flying Fever, 63. Air Intelligence Report on Aden Protectorate, July 1924, AIR 5/377. Operations Against Zeidis, Feb. to March 1928, Ch. 7, AIR 5/1299. AS Memo, 17 July 1930, Appendix IV, Operations Against Zeidi Iman, Feb to Aug. 1928, CID 1005-B, CAB 4/ 20. Charnier to Trenchard, 14 Aug. 1924, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/178. Resident Aden to DDOI Air Ministry, 10 Aug. 1925, AIR 2/1019. Operations Against Turks, July to Sept. 1921, Ch. 5; Evacuation of Sick from Koicol, A. T. Harris, 5 May 1923, Ch. 10; both in AIR 5/1253. Ellington to Trenchard, 21 Oct. 1922, Trenchard Papers, MFC 76/1/177. Lee, Never Stop the Engine, 57-8, 64; Embry, Mission Completed, 47-8. There is a run of correspondence about aircraft types at Aden in AIR 2/1046 and 1047. AOC Middle East to Air Ministry, 22 Dec. 1925, AIR 5/423 (I). Vincent, Flying Fever, 81. Operations in SE Sudan, AIR 20/680. Physical Factors Affecting Air Operations Along Sudan-Abyssinian Frontier, 29 Aug. 1932, AIR 20/689. AOC RAF Middle E. to Air Ministry, 5 Aug. 1927, AIR 2/1460. W. S. Douglas, 'Floatplane Tour in Southern Sudan'. Floatplan Reconaissance of Area Akobo-Pibor-Post-Pachala, 22 Sept. 1932, AIR 20/689. Fisher, The Middle East, 92. Salmond to Air Ministry, 20 March 1924, Salmond Papers B2584. Salmond Diary, 234 Feb. 1923, Salmond Papers, AC 71/20. Operations Against Zeidi Iman, June to Aug. 1928, AIR 5/1299. Operations Against Mahsud Sections, Waziristan, March to May 1925, Ch. 11; Maintenance of Victoria Aircraft in India, Ch. 14; both in AIR 5/1321. Operations in S. Desert, Nov. 1927 to May 1928, Ch. 23; AIR 5/1254. Lee, Never Stop the Engine, 288-91. Report by G. S. Cameron, 8 Aug. 1926, Ch. 18, AIR 5/1254. Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, G. R. MacFarlane, 8 Oct. 1931, Bottomley Papers B2260. Frolics of a Flying Officer, 192027, MacGregor Papers B2673. Gray, Memoirs, 46; Lee, Fly Past, 78-9. Air Intelligence Report on Aden Protectorate, July 1924, AIR 5/377. Operations Against Zeidi Iman, June to Aug. 1928, Ch. 8, AIR 5/1299. RAF Diary, Mesopotamia, July to Nov. 1920, Ch. 4; Operations Against Turks, July to Sept. 1921, Ch. 5; both in AIR 5/1253. Clayton, The British Empire as a Superpower, 368. Operations in S. Desert, Nov. 1927 to May 1928, Ch. 23, AIR 5/1254. Iraq

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N O T E S TO pp. 105-117 Command Report, Oct. 1930 to Sept. 1932, AIR 5/1255. Coleman, Autobiography, 667; Lee, Never Stop the Engine, 48, 54-7, 217, 271, 275, 304. HQ RAF Armoured Car Wing, Iraq, to Coys, 8 April 1924, AIR 23/575B. OC 47 Sqn to AS SDF, 30 Aug. 1932, AIR 20/689. 36 Gray, Memoirs, 51-2; Vincent, Flying Fever, 57; Lee, Never Stop the Engine, 271; Embry, Mission Completed, 35. Diary, No. 3 ACC, Basrah, May and June 1923, Nov. 1924, AIR 5/838. Use of Air Force in Mesopotamia, A. T. Wilson, 26 Feb. 1921, AIR 5/ 476. Gilbert, Churchill, IV 532; Townshend, Britain's Civil Wars, 95. 37 Air Density at Aden, 19. Aug 1925, AIR 2/1019. Air Intelligence Report on Aden Protectorate, July 1924, AIR 5/377. 38 Carr, You Are Not Sparrows, 44-5. Air Intelligence Report on Aden Protectorate, July 1924, AIR 5/377. W. S. Douglas, 'Floatplane Tour in Southern Sudan'; Lee, Never Stop the Engine, 67-72.

Chapter Six 1 Edmonds, 'Air Strategy', 198. 2 Killingray, 'Swift Agent of Government', 431-2; Clayton, The British Empire as a Superpower, 178, 381, 504. 3 AS Notes in Amplification of Section IV (East Africa) of LordTrenchard's Memo on the Fuller Employment of Air Power, March 1930, AIR 9/59. Fellowes to OC RAF Middle E., 6 June 1922, Salmond Papers B2587. Trenchard to Swann (HQ RAF Middle E.) 12 June 1925, AIR 2/1047. 4 Use of Air Arm in Sudan, Memo by the CIGS, 26 Oct. 1928, CID 915-B, CAB 4/18. Vaughan to CGS India, 15 July 1922, Salmond Papers B2598. 5 Conference Held at Quetta on 2 July 1922, Salmond Papers B2592. Lecture to the Boys at Marlborough by W/Co. N. H. Bottomley, Bottomley Papers B2240. 226th CID, 5 May 1927, CAB 4/5. Use of Air Arm in Sudan, Memo by Governor-General, Sudan, 20 June 1928, CID 904-B, CAB 4/18. 6 Conference held at Quetta on 2 July 1922, Salmond Papers B2592. Conference at Dera Ismail Khan on 4 July 1922, Salmond Papers B2593. 7 Desmond, Archetypes and Ancestors, Chapter 4. 8 AS Memo, April 1920, CID 242-B, CAB 4/7. Edmonds, 'Air Strategy' JR U SI69 (1924) 193. Lecture to Boys at Marlborough by N. H. Bottomley, c.1931, Bottomley Papers B2240. There are countless other examples of similar statements. 9 Operations Against Akh wan Raiders, 15 Aug. 1922, AIR 5/1243. Ellington to Trenchard, 27 Aug. 1922, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/177. Glubb, War in the Desert, 84. 10 Operations Against Wahabis near Ziza, Aug. 1924, AIR 5/1243. Gerrard to Trenchard, 16 Aug. 1924, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/191. 11 T. O. Ranger, 'Connexions Between "Primary Resistance" Movements and Modem Mass Nationalism in East and Central Africa (I)'; J. Iliffe, 'The Organization of the MajiMaji rebellion'. 12 For the last two paragraphs see Evans-Pritchard, Nuer Religion and Nuer Society. 13 Operations in SE Sudan, AIR 20/680. Air Operation Report No. 2, OC Detached Flight 47(B) Squadron, 20 Dec. 1927; Patrol S8, Detail of Objectives Actually Attacked; both in AIR 20/681. Air Power and Imperial Defence, AS Memo, 17 July 1930, CID 1005B, CAB 4/20. And personal information from Douglas Johnson. 14 Janis, Air War and Emotional Stress, has a sensitive treatment of the psychological impact of bombing in The Second World War. 15 J. A. Webster (AIR) to CO, 14 April 1926, AIR 2/1046. Iraq Command Report, Oct. 1922 to April 1924, AIR 5/1253. R. H. Saundby (CO Aden Flight) to A/Cdr R. H. Clarke-Hall (HQ RAF Middle East), 30 Aug. 1925, AIR 2/1019. GS Notes on Nature of Tribal Warfare in Mesopotamia, 4 March 1920, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/36. McLaren (OC Aden Flight) to Ellington, 1 April 1922, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/177. Operations in Dir, Report by AOC India, Jan. to Feb. 1932, Ch. 19, AIR 5/1322. Operations Against Mansuri Section of Subeihi, Ch. 25, AIR 5/1299.

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N O T E S TO pp. 117-127 16 For adaptation to the machine gun see Person, 'Guinea: Samori' and La Roy Denzer, 'Sierra Leone: Bai Bureh' in Crowder (ed.), West African Resistance. 17 Aircraft in Frontier Warfare, Air HQ India, Oct. 1923, AIR 5/248. Situation on N. Frontier of Iraq, Sept, to Oct. 1924, CID 637-B, CAB 4/13. 18 Operations Against Zeidi Iman, June to Aug. 1928, AIR 5/1299. RAF Operations on Patrol S9, AIR 20/681. Reconaissance of Lower Zeraf Island, F/Lt A. P. Ritchie (GS HQ SDF) AIR 20/684. Conference held in CAS' Room, 17 May 1923, AIR 5/286. 19 G/Capt. L. Rees (OC Transjordan and Palestine) to Chief Sec. Govt Offices, Jerusalem, 29 Feb. 1928; General Instructions, Operations (HQ Palestine and Transjordan), 29 Aug. 1928; both in AIR 5/203 (IV). 20 Callwell, Small Wars, 191-2. 21 Air HQ Iraq to OC Koicol, 1 April 1923, Ch. 10, AIR 5/1253. Operations Against Mahsud Sections, Waziristan, March to May 1925, Ch. 11; Disturbances on NW Fron­ tier, April 1930, Ch. 15; both in AIR 5/1321. 22 Ellington to Trenchard, 12 March 1925, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/178. RAF and NW Frontier, L. Darvall, 11 Oct. 1932, Bottomley Papers B2264. Lecture on Air Control by DCAS, Dec. 1934, Liddell Hart Papers 15/3/85. 23 Saundby (OC Aden Flight) to HQ RAF Middle E., 1 July 1925, AIR 2/1019. AVM Swann (AOC RAF Middle E.) to Air Ministry, 22 Dec. 1925, AIR 5/423 (I). Operations Against Zeidis Feb. to March 1928; Operations Against the Zeidi Iman, June to Aug. 1928; both in AIR 5/1299. 24 Belich, The New Zealand Wars, Ch. 14, Part I. Operations in Waziristan 1921, Ch. 5, AIR 5/1321. Operations Against Zeidis, Ch. 7; Operations Against Zeidi Iman, June to Aug. 1928; both in AIR 5/1299. 25 Disturbances on NW Frontier, 1930, Ch. 13, AIR 5/1321. 26 Aircraft in Frontier Warfare, Air HQ India, Oct. 1923, AIR 5/248. RAF Operations, April 1922 to March 1923, P. Game (AOC India), Ch. 8, AIR 5/1321. Operations by RAF Iraq, Feb. to Oct. 1922, Ch. 7, AIR 5/1253. Operations Against Giga and Nekzan Khel, Nov. 1928, Ch.13, AIR 5/1321. 27 Operations Against Zeidis in Audali Country, July to Oct. 1925, Ch. 4, AIR 5/1299. 28 Borton to Trenchard, 21 March 1921, AIR 5/476. 29 Lee, Never Stop the Engine, 63. Disturbances on NW Frontier, Ch. 15, AIR 5/1321. 30 Haldane (C-in-C MEF) despatches Nos. 3, 8 Nov. 1920, and 4, 8 Feb. 1921, Ch. 3, AIR 5/1253. Operations in Sudan, Dec. 1927 to Feb. 1928, CID 903-B, CAB 4/18. On Kurdistan, see various documents in Ch. 10, AIR 5/1253. Embry, Mission Completed, 79-80; Townshend, Britain's Civil Wars, 106. 31 Abridged Despatch by AVM Peirse on Disturbances in Palestine, April to Sept. 1936, AIR 5/1244. Diary of RAF in Mesopotamia, July to Nov. 1920, III; Statistical Record of RAF Work Mesopotamia,- both in Ch. 4, AIR 5/1253. Air Power and Imperial Defence, Memo by AS, 17 July 1930, CID 1005-B, CAB 4/20. 32 General Instructions (HQ RAF Palestine and Transjordan), 29 Aug. 1928, AIR 5/203 (IV). Fellowes to OC RAF Middle E., 6 June 1922, Salmond Papers B2587. Operations Against Zeidis, Feb. to March 1928, Ch. 7, AIR 5/1299. Patrol S8, Air Operation Order N o.l, 18 Dec. 1927, AIR 20/681. Operations Against Giga and Nekzan Khel, Nov. 1928, Ch. 13, AIR 5/1321. RAF Staff College, Operations NW Frontier, 28 Sept. 1931, Appendix 9, Bottomley Papers B2255. AS Notes on Tactical Lessons of Palestine Rebellion, 13c, 1 March 1937; Military Lessons of Arab Rebellion, GS, Feb. 1938, Appendix 18; both in AIR 5/1244. 33 Use of RAF on NW Frontier, Conference at Dera Ismail Khan, 14 July 1922, Salmond Papers B2593. 34 Carr, You Are Not Sparrows, 77-8. Lee, Never Stop The Engine, 108, 116. Embry, Mission Completed, 54, 79. 35 Weekly Intelligence Summary No. 13, 2 Oct. 1920, CP. 1925, CAB 24/112. Coleman, Autobiography, 59-60. Iraq Command Report, April 1924 to Nov. 1926, Ch. 19; Operations in S. Desert, Nov. 1927 to May 1928, Ch. 23; AIR 5/1254. Peck to Bullock, 12 Dec. 1930, Liddell Hart Papers, 15/3/85. Lee, Never Stop the Engine, 313-14. 36 Operations Against Mahsud Sections, Waziristan, March to May 1925, Ch. 11, AIR 5/

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N O T E S TO pp. 128-138

37 38 39 40 41

42 43 44

45

1321. General Instructions (HQ RAF Palestine and Transjordan), 28 Aug 1928, AIR 5/ 203 (IV). Reid (GS HQ SDF) 12 Feb. 1929, AIR 20/682. Procedure in Event of Forced Landings in Enemy Territory, undated, c. Oct. 1923, AIR 5/248. RAF Operations, April 1922 to March 1923 by AOC India, Ch. 8, AIR 5/1321. Game to CAS, 12 April 1923; HQ Waziristan Force to CGS Army HQ India, 30 April 1923; Report by Game, 10 May 1923; Meeting of 6 Aug. 1923; all in AIR 5/248. Problem of Control of S. Desert Iraq, H. Lock, 9 Oct. 1931, Bottomley Papers B2257. Conference Held in C-in-C's Room, 25 July 1922, Salmond Papers B2596. Lee, Never Stop the Engine, 62-3. 'Introduction', Person 'Guinea: Samori' and Smith 'Nigeria: Ijebu' in Crowder (ed.), West African Resistance. M. Legassick, 'Firearms, Horses and Samorian Army Organi­ zation 1870-1898'. Mockler, Haile Selassie's War, xxii. Operations Against the Zeidi Iman, June to Aug. 1928, AIR 5/1299. AS Note on Situation in SW Arabia, Oct. 1926, AIR 5/423 (I). Air Ministry to AVM Webb-Bowen, RAF Middle East, 19 Jan. 1927; Stewart (Resident, Aden) to SS Colonies, 9 Feb. 1927; Armed Forces in S Arabia, Note by AI2a, 23 March 1927; all in AIR 2/1020. Resident Aden to HC Egypt, 28 Jan. 1928, AIR 2/1021. Memo by SS Air, 14 Jan. 1929, CP.4|29), CAB 24/201.84th COS, 4 Nov. 1929, CAB 53/3. Munson, Bombers Between the Wars 1919-1939, 105. Afghanistan, CID 140-D and CID 149-D; Aviation in Afghanistan and Policy of HMG, April 1927, CID 153-D; all in CAB 6/5. Rebellion of Tribes of E Afghanistan, Dec. 1928, CP.403(28), CAB 24/199 M. J. Hardy, 'Aviation in Afghanistan'. Munson, Bombers Between the Wars 19191939, 103, 112. Trenchard to Ellington, 5 May 1924; AS Note on Air Requirements to Meet Afghan Air Menace, 23 March 1925; both in Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/178. Afghanistan, Dec. 1925, CID 140-D; Oct. 1926, CID 149-D; and Feb. 1927, CID 152-D; all in CAB 6/5. 218th CID, 25 Nov. 1926, CAB 2/4. Conference at Quetta, 22 July 1922, Salmond Papers B2592. Saundby (OC Aden Fit) to Clarke-Hall (HQ RAF Middle East), 30 Aug. 1925, AIR 2/1019. Operations Against Upper Yafa Villages, 22-23 Nov. 1933, 4 Dec. 1933; Operations Against Mansuri Section of Subeihi, 17 Sept. 1938, Ch. 25; both in AIR 5/1299.

Chapter Seven 1 Dean, The RAF And Two World Wars, 39-40; Beaumont, ' A New Lease on Empire', 8990; Smith, British Air Strategy Between the Wars, 32-3; Killingray, 'A Swift Agent of Government', 433; Clayton, The British Empire as a Superpower, 288, 381. 2 Cole, Imperial Military Geography, Ch. VIE; Gilbert, Churchill, IV 216, 550-1, 580. CP.83, 8 Nov. 1919, CAB 24/92. Confce 94, 19 April 1921, CAB 23/38. Wilson to Congreve, 13 April 1921, Jeffery, Wilson Letters, 254-5. 3 Operations RAF Iraq, Feb. 1921 to Feb. 1922, Ch. 6; RAF Operations, Iraq, Feb. to Oct. 1922, Ch. 7; both in AIR 5/1253. Diary Letters from Hinaidi, Evill Papers AC 74/8/36. Cole, Imperial Military Geography, Ch. VIII. Air Power and Imperial Defence, Memo by AS, 6 Oct. 1926, CID 721-B, CAB 4/15. Air Power and Imperial Defence, AS Memo, 17 July 1930, CID 1005-B, CAB 4/20. Gavin, Aden Under British Rule, 282-3. 4 Cairo-Baghdad Air Route, Memo by Trenchard, 11 Dec. 1922, AIR 8/57. Casey to Bruce, 6 Aug. 1925, My Dear PM, 71; Bond, British Military Policy, Ch. 4. Trenchard to Ellington, 9 Jan. 1924, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/178. 5 Air Power and Imperial Defence, Memo by AS 6 Oct. 1926, CID 721 -B, Cab 4/15. Some Principles of Imperial Defence, 12 March 1928, CID 313-C, CAB 5/7. Garrod, 'Air Strategy', 32-3. 6 AS Memo, April 1920, CID 242-B, CAB 4/7. Air Power and Imperial Defence, Memo by AS, 17 July 1930, CID 1005-B, CAB 4/20. Perry-Keene, 'Mosul to Moascar'. 7 Employment of Service Airships, undated c.1920; Modifications to AS Scheme for Control of Mesopotamia, AS Feb. 1921; both in Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/36.

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8

9

10 11 12

13 14 15

16 17 18

Questions of Air Policy for Imperial Conference, May 1926, CDD 270-B, CAB 5/6. Air Power and Imperial Defence, AS Memo, 6 Oct. 1926, CED 721-B, CAB 4/15. OC Aden Flight to HQ RAF Middle E., 1 July 1925; Resident Aden to DDOI Air Ministry, 10 Aug. 1925; Minute by Trenchard to DDOI, 29 Aug. 1925,- all in AIR 2/ 1019. DDOI to DCAS, 9 Aug. 1926, AIR 20/170. Operations Against Zeidis, Feb. to March 1928, Ch. 7, AIR 5/1299. Letter to Chetwode, 9 Oct. 1928, AIR 2/789. Air Estimates, Memo by Hoare, 14 Jan. 1929, CP.4(29), CAB 24/201. Trenchard to Hankey, 30 July 1925, Addendum, Deterrent Effect of Aircraft, 29 July 1925, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/133.32nd COS, 3 June 1926, CAB 53/1. Singapore Naval Base, Report by COS, 9 July 1926, and Memo by CAS, 12 May 1926, CID 273B, CAB 5/6. Air Power and Imperial Defence, AS Memo, 6 Oct. 1926, CID 721-B, CAB 4/15.215th CID, 22 July 1927, CAB 2/4. Coast Defence, Memo, 23 Nov. 1927, CID 308C, CAB 5/6. 92nd COS, 1 July 1930, CAB 53/3. Specification No. 24/24 Torpedo Carrying and Bombing Landplane, 27 Jan. 1926, AIR 2/826. FOtoDDRD,2Dec. 1925; Portal to Trenchard, 29 July 1926; FOI to Trenchard, 26 May 1926 and 9 Jan. 1928; all in AIR 20/3. Newall (DCAS) to CAS and AMSR, c.Oct. 1930, AIR 20/170. J. Salmond to AMSR, DCAS and DOSD, 31 July 1931, AIR 20/177. Note to Trenchard, 6 Nov. 1929; FOI toCA S,4July 1930,- FOI to DCAS,30 May 1932; FOI to CAS, 9 June 1933,- all in AIR 20/3. FOI to DCAS, 3 Dec. 1931; DDOI to CAS, 1 June 1933; both in AIR 20/170. Minute to DCAS, 16 May 1932, AIR 20/4. LudlowHewitt to CAS, 4 Dec. 1933,- CAS to DCAS, 14 Dec. 1933; both in AIR 2/826. Halley, The Squadrons of the Royal Air Force. Minute by DDOI to Trenchard, 28 Aug. 1925, AIR 2/1019. DDOI to DCAS, 9 Aug. 1926, AIR 20/170. Notes to Trenchard, May, 9 July and 20 July 1927, and June 1928; Note by Trenchard, 16 Oct. 1928; all in AIR 20/170. Air Ministry to OC RAF Aden, 6 June 1928; DOSD to AOC RAF Middle E, 9 June 1928; HQ RAF Aden to Air Ministry, 16 Aug. 1928; all in AIR 2/758. Specification 12/26,16 Aug. 1926; Maintenance Trials on Hart, 20 Nov 1928; both in AIR 2/818. For the last two paragraphs see: AOC India to Air Ministry, 20 Sept 1930, AIR 2/818. Munson, Bombers Between the Wars, 116-17. Specification 7/31,27 July 1931, AIR 2/ 869. Iraq Command Report, Dec 1934 to Feb. 1937, Ch. 39, AIR 5/1255. Frolics of a Flying Officer, MacGregor Papers, B2673. Coleman, Autobiography, 53-4; Gray, Memoirs, 47. Note to Trenchard, 9 May 1929, AIR 20/102. Brooke-Popham to Air Ministry, 14 June 1928; AMSR to CAS, 7 Sept 1928; both in Brooke-Popham Papers, U/2.

19 Salmond to Trenchard, 21 July 1922, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/138. AOC Middle E. to Air Ministry, Sept. 1920; OC H Unit to AOC Middle E., 10 June 1920; both in AIR 20/680. Expenditure of Bombs in Small Wars, Salmond to Air Ministry, 20 March 1924, Salmond Papers B2584. HQ RAF Transjordan and Palestine to Air Ministry, 29 Feb. 1928 and 8 March 1928, AIR 5/203(IV). Palestine Riots 23 Aug. to 11 Sept. 1929, Appendix H, AIR 5/1243. 20 Air Power and Imperial Defence, AS Memo, 17 July 1930, Appendix U, CID 1005-B, CAB 4/20. Technical Report, Appendix A to AIR 2/1519. Note by Harris, 7 March 1932, AIR 9/59. Fairey DIF, OC 47 Sqn, 7 Sept. 1928; O Gayford to HQ RAF Middle E., 20 Aug. 1928; both in AIR 2/758. Wapiti During N Command (India) Manoeuvres, Nov. to Dec. 1928 by OC 20 Sqn, Appendix Q AOC Iraq to Air Ministry, 18 Aug. 1928, Appendix A; both in AIR 2/789. Iraq Command Report, Oct 1930. to Sept. 1932, AIR 5/1255. 21 O. Gayford to HQ RAF Middle E., 20 Aug. 1928; Fairey RIF with Long Distance Tanks, 25 Nov. 1930; both in AIR 2/758. Peck to DCAS, 16 April 1930; DCAS to CAS, 22 April 1930; both in AIR 20/102. Wapiti with Long Distance Tanks, 24 Nov. 1930, AIR 2/790. Iraq Command Report, Oct. 1930 to Sept. 1932, AIR 5/1255. 22 Gilbert, Churchill, IV 550. Report on Cairo Conference 12-30 March 1921, CP.2866, CAB 24/122. Letter from Ellington, 21 April 1922, CP.3964, CAB 24/136. Defence of Iraq, Memo by Hoare, 14 May 1922, CP.244(25), CAB 24/173. Air Policy and a One-

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23 24

25 26 27

Power Air Standard, Memo by Hoare, Feb. 1923, CP.88(23), CAB24/158. Situation in Iraq, Memo by Amery, 11 May 1925, CP.235(25), CAB24/173. Embry, Mission Completed, 39, 54. Minute by Pirie, AIR 2/1385. Wilson to Congreve, 13 April 1921, Jeffery (ed.), The Wilson Letters, 254. Embry, Mission Completed, 44-5,48,89. Iraq Command Report, Oct. 1930 to Sept. 1932, AIR 5/1255. Salmond to Trenchard, 9 Jan. 1924, Trenchard Papers, MFC 76/1/138. Lee, Fly Past, 65. Diary, Detached Flight, Kapoeta; Borna Plateau Reconaissance, 1936; both in AIR 20/ 693. AOC RAF Middle E. to Air Ministry 22 July 1932; Minute by DDOI, 5 Sept. 1932; AIR 2/1520. 1 (Indian) Group, Collective Training Exercises, 1936, Bottomley Papers B2281. Air Operations Transjordan, 1 June to 30 Nov. 1930, AIR 5/1244. Annual Inspection of RAF Aden Flight, 1925, AIR 2/1047. Embry, Mission Completed, 86-7. Smith, British Air Strategy Between the Wars, 323-7. Comments by Air Staff on Cabinet Papers, 5 July 1923, CP.310(23), CAB 24/161. Edmonds, 'Air Strategy', 195. Remarks by Ellington at 125th COS, 4 May 1934 and 130th COS, 27 June 1934, CAB 53/4. War Object of an Air Force, Memo by Trenchard, 2 May 1928, COS 147, CAB 53/14. Trenchard to Hankey, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/ 1/133. Situation in Event of War With Germany, 26 Oct. 1936, Appendix II, COS 513 (JP) also JP.155, CAB 53/29. Situation in Event of War with Germany, July 1938, COS 747 (JP) also JP.290, CAB 53/40.

Chapter Eight 1 AIR 5/248. 2 Orwell, Selected Essays, IV. 'Politics and the English Language' is, like so many of Orwell's shorter pieces, a brilliant essay. 3 Gilbert, Winston Churchill, IV 401-9; Jeffery, The British Army and the Crisis of Empire, 100-2. Conclusions of Hunter Committee (6 May 1919) circulated 6 May 1920, CP. 1240, CAB 24/105, and later as CP. 1306, CAB 24/106. 4 Gwynn, Imperial Policing, 5; Townshend, Britain's Civil Wars, 33-4; Clayton, The British Empire as a Superpower, 380-1. 5 Expenditure of Bombs in Small Wars, Salmond to Air Ministry, 20 March 1924, Salmond Papers B2584. Unsigned and undated paper on Air Force and Indian Defence, Salmond Papers B2604. 6 Iraq Command Report, Oct. 1922 to April 1924, AIR 5/1253. Minute by CAS, 28 March 1928, CP. 104 (82), CAB 24/194. 7 Aerial Bombing on the Indian Frontier, P. Game, April 1923, AIR 5/248. Operations in Sudan, Dec. 1927 to Feb. 1928, Governor-General, Sudan to HC Egypt, 22 March 1928, CID 903-B, CAB 4/18. Disturbances on NW Frontier, 1930, Ch. 13, AIR 5/1321. Operations Against Zeidis in Audali Country, July to Oct. 1925, Ch. 4, AIR 5/1299. 8 Operations SE Sudan, 1920, AIR 20/680. Patrol S8, Details of Objectives Actually Attacked; Uses of Aircraft, Report by Governor Upper Nile Province, 17 Feb. 1928,both in AIR 20/681. Aircraft in Frontier Warfare, Air HQ India, Oct. 1923, AIR 5/248. Operations Against Mahsud Setions, Waziristan, March to May 1925, Ch. 11, AIR 5/ 1321. 9 Keegan, The Face of Battle, 18. Operations Against Mohmands, June 1927,Ch. 12, AIR 5/1321. Extract from Report by OC 45 Squadron, covered by letter from AOC Iraq dated 6 March 1924, AIR 5/338. Diary letter from Douglas Evill to his wife, 23 Dec. 1923, Evill Papers AC 74/8/36. 10 Salmond to Trenchard, 29 Nov. 1923, AIR 5/338. Iraq Command Report, Oct. 1922 to April 1924, AIR 5/1253. Salmond Diary, 16 March 1923, Salmond Papers AC 71/20. P. Game to CAS, 31 May 1923, AIR 5/248. Principles to be Adopted in Flying on the Frontier, 15 Oct. 1925, CP. 139(26), CAB 24/179. Operations Against Sheikh Mahmud, Sulaimania, May 1924, Ch. 14, AIR 5/1254. Hadramaut Operations, 1937, AIR 5/1299. Iraq Command Report, Oct. 1930 to Sept. 1932, AIR 5/1255. Operations Against

[2 3 0 ]

N O T E S TO pp. 155-162 Sheikh Ahmed of Barzan, 1931-32, Bottomley Papers B2249. 11 Air Ministry to India Office, 4 Feb. 1932, AIR 2/1283. Aerial Bombing on the Indian Frontier, P. Game, April 1923; Game to CAS, 19 April 1923,- both in AIR 5/248. Fellowes to OC Middle E, 6 June 1922, Salmond Papers B2587. Operations in Iraq, Feb. to Oct. 1922, Ch. 7, AIR 5/1253. Operations, SE Sudan, 1920, AIR 20/680. Operations in Dir, Bajaur and Mohmand Territory, Jan. to March 1932, Ch. 20, AIR 5/1322. Waziristan Operations, Feb. 1937, Bottomley Papers, B2289. 12 Effect of Air Operations, May to June 1932, Appendix G, Bottomley Papers B2249. Embry, Mission Completed, 30. Operations Against Mohmands, June 1927, Ch. 12, AIR 5/1321. Operations Against Quteibi Tribes, March to May 1934; Operations Against Subeihi Mansuri Section, April to Sept 1938, Ch. 23; both in AIR 5/1299. 13 Salmond to Trenchard, 29 Nov. 1923, AIR 5/338. Meeting Held at Army HQ, Simla, 19 June 1922, Salmond Papers, B2591. Aircraft in Frontier Warfare, Air HQ India, Oct. 1923, AIR 5/248. Operations, RAF Iraq, Feb. to Oct. 1922, Ch. 7, AIR 5/1253. Employment of RAF in Nuer Country, 5 Nov. 1928, AIR 20/682. Air Operation Order No. 2 ,19Dec. 1927 and No. 3,21 Dec. 1927; AIR 20/681. Reconaissance of Lower Zeraf Island, April 1930, AIR 20/684. Operations Against Subaihi, Jan. to March 1929,Operations Against Zeidi Iman, June to Aug. 1928,- both in AIR 5/1299. 14 HM Minister, Kabul to Government of India, 18 April 1923, AIR 5/248. Operations in Waziristan, March to May 1925, Ch. 11 ; Against the Giga and Nekzan Khel, Nov. 1928, Ch. 13, AIR 5/1321. Evans-Pritchard, Nuer Religion, 248-9. Douglas, 'Floatplane Tour in Southern Sudan' 221. Operations in the Sudan, Dec. 1927 to Feb. 1928, CID 903-B, CAB 4/18. 15 Air Forces on NW Frontier of India, 1936, Bottomley Papers B2285. 'The Role of Special Service Officers in the Air Intelligence Organization' RAFQ 2 (1931), 52-7. Fellowes to OC Middle East, 6 June 1922, Salmond Papers B2587. Objects of Blockade, E. R. Ludlow-Hewitt, 5 March 1937, Bottomley Papers B2287. Waziristan Operations, Feb. 1937, Bottomley Papers B2289. 16 McClaughrey, 'The Gordon-Shephard Memorial Prize Essay, 1929'. Townshend, Britain's Civil Wars, 103-4, 110. Palestine Riots 23 Aug. to 11 Sept. 1929, Appendix J, AIR 5/1243. Despatch on Palestine Disturbances, April to Sept 1936, AVM Peirse, Appendix 3,- Military Lessons of the Arab Rebellion in Palestine, 1936; both in AIR 5/ 1244. 17 Lecture to Boys at Marlborough, c. 1931, Bottomley Papers, B2240. Clayton, The British Empire as a Superpower, 157. Proceedings of Conference held at Quetta, 2 July 1922, Salmond Papers B2592. Air Ministry to Colonial Office, 16 May 1927 and 21 June 1927; R. Graham to A. Chamberlain, 4 May 1928; all in AIR 2/1021. 18 DC AS to GOC Palestine, 15 Nov. 1923, AIR 5/203(1). Minute by DDOI to CAS, June 1927, AIR 5/203(111). Use of the Air Arm in the Sudan, Memo by AS, 10 Oct. 1928, CID 911-B, CAB 4/18. Letter from Charnier, 16 Aug. 1923, AIR 5/248. 19 McClaughry to Air Ministry, 13 April and 6 Oct. 1937, AIR 5/1299. Employment of Air Forces on NW Frontier, 1936, Bottomley Papers B2285. 20 Townshend, 'Civilization and Frightfulness', 148. Wg/Cdr, (AS to S of S) to CAS, 19 Feb. 1920, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/36. Gilbert, Winston Churchill, IV 494, 810, Companion IV ii, 1066-7, 1083, 1190. Townshend, Britain's Civil Wars, 98. 21 Clayton, The British Empire as a Superpower, 468. Conference held on SS Hafir at Abwong, 7 Dec. 1927, AIR 20/681. 22 Aircraft in Frontier Warfare, Air HQ India, Oct. 1923, AIR 5/248. Operations Against Mahsud Tribes, May 1924, Ch. 10; Disturbances on NW Frontier, April 1930, Ch. 15; AIR 5/1321. Colonial Secretary to Resident Aden, 5 March 1927, CP. 172(27), CAB 24/ 187. Salmond to Trenchard, 29 Nov. 1923, AIR 5/338. Memo by Secretary of State for Air, 2 Feb. 1924, end. extract from letter by Salmond, CP.93(24), CAB 24/164. Operations Against Turks, July to Sept. 1921, Ch. 5, AIR 5/1253. 23 AOC Iraq to Trenchard, 6 Aug. 1924, AIR 5/338. 'Air Notes' RAFQ, 2 (1931 ) 701 -2. Use of the Air Arm in the Sudan, AS Memo, 10 Oct. 1928, CID 911-B, CAB 4/18. Coggle, 'The Nuer Chiefs at Khartoum'. DC Narok to Colonial Secretary, 13 Jan. 1932, AIR 2/ 1519. Peirse to Ellington, 7 July 1936, Brooke-Popham Papers II/8.

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N O T E S TO pp. 163-171 24 Beaumont, 'A New Lease on Empire', 85-8. Clayton, The British Empire as a Superpower, 80. Trenchard to Salmond, 27 July 1922 and 13 Feb. 1923, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/138. Operations Against Beni Huchaim Tribes, Iraq, Nov. to Dec. 1923, Ch. 11, AIR 5/1253. Air Ministry to Middle Eastern Commands, 27 Nov. 1933, AIR 2/661. Memo by A. T. Harris, DD Plans, 13 March 1935, AIR 2/691. 25 Bond, British Military Policy, especially Chs 2,5 and 6. Minute by Trenchard, 17 Oct. 1921, CID 151-C, CAB 5/4. AS Memo on Psychological Effects of Air Bombardment on Semi-Civilized Peoples, 2 Feb. 1924, Bottomley Papers B2234. Waldie, Ph.D. thesis, 206-7. 26 Policy and Finance in Mesopotamia, Memo by Worthington-Evans, 17 Aug. 1921, CP.3240, CAB 24/127. Note by Henry Wilson, Sept. 1921, CID 150-C, CAB 5/4. Townshend, Britain’s Civil Wars, 97. Weir to Dill, 5 Nov. 1936, WO 282/5. 27 Operations Against Turks, July to Sept. 1921, Ch. 5, AIR 5/1253. Aircraft in Frontier Warfare, Air HQ India, Oct. 1923; Note by Game (AOC India) 18 Oct. 1923; both in AIR 5/248. AS Memo on Psychological Effects of Air Bombardment on Semi-Civilized Peoples, 2 Feb. 1924, Bottomley Papers B2234. Air Ministry to Colonial Office, 10 Aug. 1925; Minute by Steel, 7 Aug. 1925; both in AIR 2/1019. Lecture to Staff College, Quetta, Aug. 1922, Salmond Papers B2620. The Fallacies of 'Inhumanity' and 'Ran­ cour', Bottomley Papers B2244. 28 Hankey to PM, 28 May 1920, CAB 63/27. Garrison of Aden, Memo by CIGS, 24 Feb. 1927, CP.250(27), CAB 24/188 (also Annexure C to CID 151-D, CAB 6/5). Townshend, Britain’s Civil Wars, 154. 29 Policy in Iraq, Memo by Colonial Secretary, 8 Feb. 1924, CP.264(24), CAB 24/166. 30 Resident, Waziristan to Chief Commissioner NW Frontier Province, Nov 1928, Ch. 13, AIR 5/1321. Air Power and Imperial Defence, AS Memo, 17 July 1930, CID 1005B, CAB 4/20. Air Control: The Other Point of View, by J. C. Slessor, May 1931, Bottomley Papers B2241. 31 Operations Against Giga and NekzanKhel, Nov. 1928,Ch. 13, AIR 5/1321. Operations in Dir, Bajaur and Mohmand Territory, Jan. to March 1932, AIR 5/1322. Air Control: The Other Point of View, by J. C. Slessor, May 1931, Bottomley Papers B2241. 32 Townshend, Britain’s Civil Wars, 32. OC Aden Flight to HQ RAF Middle E., 30 Aug. 1925, AIR 2/1019. Operations in Dir, Bajaur and Mohmand Territory, Jan. to March 1932, Ch. 20, AIR 5/1322. 33 Government of India to Secretary of State, 15 Oct. 1925, CP. 139(26), CAB 24/179. Objects of Air Blockade and Air Action, E. R. Ludlow-Hewitt, 5 March 1937, Bottomley Papers B2287. Operations Against the Quteibi, 22 March to 21 May 1934, AIR 5/ 1299. 34 Callwell, Small Wars, 306-7. Matheson to CGS, India, 24 July 1922, Salmond Papers B2595. Operations in Waziristan, 16 Jan. to 15 Sept. 1937, Bottomley Papers B2288. Ellington to Trenchard, 12 and 22 April 1925, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/178. 35 Situation in Mesopotamia, War Office to India Office, 22 July 1920, CP. 1696, CAB 24/ 109. Note by Game, 18 Oct. 1923, AIR 5/248. Government of India to Secretary of State, 15 Oct. 1925, CP. 139(26), CAB 24/179. Townshend, 'Civilization and Frightful­ ness', 158. 36 The Fallacies of 'Inhumanity' and 'Rancour', Bottomley Papers B2244. Townshend, 'Civilization and Frightfulness', 154. Callwell, Small Wars, 40-1, 97. Despatch from Maj.-Gen. G. F. MacMunn, 12 Nov. 1919; Despatch from Sir J. A. L. Haldane, 8 Nov. 1920; both inC h.2,A IR5/l 253. Governor-General Sudan to HC Egypt, 22 March 1922, CID 903-B, CAB 4/18. 37 Government of India to Secretary of State, 150ct. 1925,CP.139(26),CAB24/179.Note by Sir J. Maffrey, 8 Sept. 1922, Salmond Papers B2610. Aircraft in Frontier Warfare, Air HQ India, Oct. 1923, AIR 5/248. Townshend, 'Civilization and Frightfulness', 155; Glubb, War in the Desert, Preface, 75; Vachell, 'Air Control in SW Arabia', 1-7; Clayton, The British Empire as a Superpower, 484. Brooke-Popham, 'The Air Force'. 38 Game to CAS, 6 June 1923, AIR 5/248. Charnier to Trenchard, 18 March 1925, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/159. Brooke-Popham to Air Ministry, 28 Sept 1932; Letter to Times by H. Dobbs, 29 Sept. 1932; Brooke-Popham Papers 11/13.

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N O T E S TO pp. 172-186 39 See various articles and editorials from Flight magazine. 40 Flight magazine, 14 (1922), 352, 368-72, and 19 (1927), 432, 460. 41 Flight magazine, 22 (1930), 764, 24 (1932), 542, 585-99. Programme of the Royal Air Force Display, 1936, 59. 42 Air Power and Imperial Defence, AS Memo, 17 July 1930, CID 1005-B, CAB 4/20. Operations RAF Iraq, Feb. 1921 to Feb. 1922, Ch. 6, AIR 5/1253. Lee, Never Stop the Engine, 159-67,234-5. Stark, The Southern Gates of Arabia, iv, 271-87. Smythies, T h e Civilizing Influence of Aircraft and of Imperial Air Communications'. OC RAF East African Cruise to AOC Middle East, April 1932, AIR 2/1519. 43 AOC Middle East to Trenchard, 1 March 1921. Gilbert, Churchill, IV 796-7. Sluglett, Britain in Iraq, 264-7. Report by OC Mesopotamian Group, 30 May 1921; Churchill to Trenchard, 22 July 1921 ?; both in Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/139. Salmond Diary, 5 May 1923, Salmond Papers AC 71/20. 44 Trenchard to Ellington, 22 Jan. 1924, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/177. Thomas to Dobbs, 31 Jan. 1924, Dobbs to Thomas, 2 Feb. 1924, CP.88(24),CAB24/164.Memoby Secretary of State for Air, 2 Feb. 1924, CP.93(24), CAB 24/164. Casey to Bruce, 25 Feb. 1925, My Dear PM, 28. 45 Charlton, Charlton, 270-90. Trenchard to Salmond, 16 Aug. 1922 and 6 Nov. 1923, Salmond to Trenchard, 29 Nov. 1923, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/138. Exchange of letters between Trenchard, Salmond, Steel and Secretary of State, 10 Sept, to 18 Oct. 1923, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/161. Use of Air Force in Iraq, Memo by Charlton, c. Nov. 1923, AIR 5/338. 46 Charlton, Charlton, 269,272. Trenchard to Salmond, 14 Nov. 1923, Trenchard Papers MFC 76/1/138. Lees to his Father, 12 May 1924, Lees Papers 1/1. Lee, Flypast, 53-4,77. 47 Memo by Worthington-Evans, 23 April 1929, CP. 119(29); Memo by Hoare, 24 April 1929, CP. 124(29); Committee on the Proposed Grant of GS Medal, 10 May 1929, CP. 146(29); all in CAB 24/203. C. 19(29)6,1 May 1929; C .21(29) 10; both in CAB 23/60. 48 Killingray, 'Swift Agent of Government', 440. Kieman, European Empires From Conquest to Collapse, 1815-1960, 200. 49 Brune, 'An Effort to Regulate Aerial Bombing', 183-5. 50 Speech by Simon, 8 Feb. 1932, Cmd.4018. Memo by Sim m and Londonderry, 21 March 1932, CP. 110(32); Ministerial Disarmament Committee, 5 April 1932, CP. 119(32); CAB 24/229. Memo by CIGS, 30 May 1932, CP. 176(32); Memo by First Lord of Admiralty, 31 May 1932, CP. 182(32); both in CAB 24/230. Memo by Foreign Secretary, 23 June 1932, CP.222(32), CAB 24/231. Draft Disarmament Convention Submitted to Conference, 16 March 1933, CP.74(33), CAB 24/239. 51 Memo by Secretary of State for Air, 10 Feb. 1933, CP.30(33); Humphreys to Simon, 15 Dec. 1932, CP.4(33); CAB 24/237. Memo by CAS, 3 June 1932, CP. 183(32), CAB 24/ 230. Note by India Office, 19 April 1933, Annexure 1, Section 3 to CID 1112-B, CAB 4/22. 52 The Disarmament Conference, Message from Eden, 27 May 1933, CP. 150(33); Meeting of Ministers, 5 May 1933, CP.122(33); both in CAB 24/241. 53 Memo by Londonderry, 31 May 1932, CP. 181 (32), CAB 24/230. Hankey to PM, 12 April 1932, Hankey Papers CAB 63/45. Memo by Simon, 20 Feb. 1932, CP.78(32), CAB 24/ 228 54 Memos by Simon, 31 March 1932, CP. 125(32), CAB 24/229; 15Sept. 1932,CP.305(32), CAB 24/232; 27 Sept. 1932, CP.323(32(, CAB 24/233; 28 Feb. 1933, CP.52(33), CAB 24/ 239. C.49(32)l, 30 Sept. 1932, CAB 23/72. C.39(33)l, 9 June 1933, CAB.23/76.

Chapter Nine 1 Woolman, Rebels in the Rif -, Payne, Politics and the Military in Modern Spain, Chs 911. 2 Woolman, Rebels in the Rif. 3 Woolman, Rebels in the Rif, Chs 11-13. Air Aspect of the Franco-Rif War, AI3,20 May 1930, AIR 5/722.

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N O T E S TO pp. 186-194 4 Lainé, 'L'Aeronautique Militaire Française au Maroc', 109-10; Christienne and Lissarrague, Histoire de VAviation Militaire Française, 225, 245. Air Aspect of the Franco-Rif War, AI3, 20 May 1930, AIR 5/722. Aerial Activity During Campaign in Morocco, 1925, (W712/469/28); Sherbrooke to MI3, WO, 23 March 1926 (W2707/469/ 28); both in FO 371/11917. 5 Air Aspect of the Franco-Rif War, AI3, 20 May 1930, AIR 5/722. 6 Christienne and Lissarrague, Histoire de VAviation Militaire Française, 213-19,2535. 7 Lainé, 'L'Aeronautique Militaire Française au Maroc', 116-18. 8 Lainé, 'L'Aeronautique Militaire Française au Maroc', 112. Aerial Activity During the Campaign in Morocco, 23 Jan. 1926 (W712/469/28) FO 371/11917. 9 Lainé, 'L'Aeronautique Militaire Française au Maroc', 110-13. General Staff Directive, Nov. 1925 (W3176/469/28); Aerial Activity During the Campaign in Morocco, 1925, 23 Jan. 1926 (W712/469/28); both in FO 371/11917. Air Aspect of the Franco-Rif War, AI3, 20 May 1930, AIR 5/722. 10 Woolman, Rebels in the Rif, 202-3. Aerial Activity During the Campaign in Morocco, 23 Jan. 1926 (W712/469/28) FO 371/11917. 11 Woolman, Rebels in the Rif, 105, 148, 153, 198. There is a run of documents about Rifian forces in W186/186/28 (file) FO 371/11080-1. 12 The French in Syria 1919-24, Maj. McCullam, Nov. 1924, AIR 23/85. Allenby to FO, 9 June 1920 (E6227/2/44) FO 371/5035. 13 Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate, 151-60. A run of documents describing the outbreak of the rebellion can be found in AIR 5/203(11). 14 Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate, 160-204. For the military events of the rebellion I have relied extensively upon the excellent reports by the British Liaison Officer in Beirut, Maj. Salisbury-Jones, in AIR 23/87-90. Salisbury-Jones was a devout Francophile, which means his descriptions of French atrocities should be taken all the more seriously. 15 Stationnement des Troupes de l'Armée du Levant, 20 Feb. 1925, AIR 23/96. Aerial Activity in Syria, 1925 (E656/12/89) F 0371/11505. Report by Elliot, 16 July 1929, AIR 23/94. Military Report on Syria, Chs 7 and 10, AIR 23/798. 16 Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate, 79-80. Reports by Salisbury-Jones, 22 Oct. 1924, AIR 23/85; 27 Aug. 1925, AIR 23/87; 5 and 12 May 1926, AIR 23/89. 17 Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate, 80-1,170-2,192. Reports by Salisbury-Jones, 4,25 and 30 Nov. 1925, AIR 23/88; 18 March 1926, AIR 23/89. Smart to Chamberlain, 23 Nov. 1925 (E7471/357/89) FO 371/10853; 23 Feb. 1926 (E1589/12/89) FO 371/ 11506. 18 Report by Salisbury-Jones, 5 May 1926, AIR 23/89. 19 Report by Salisbury-Jones, 6 Oct. 1925, AIR 23/87. 20 Aerial Activity in Syria, 1925 (E656/12/89) FO 371/11505. Reports by Salisbury-Jones, 6 Oct. 1925, AIR 23/87; and 5 May 1926, AIR 23/89. 21 Reports by Salisbury-Jones, 6 Oct. 1925, AIR 23/87,- 22 July and 8 Sept. 1926, AIR 23/ 90. 22 Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate, 171-3. Smart to Chamberlain, 7 Sept. 1925 (E5698/357/89) FO 371/10851 and 24 Feb. 1926 (El593/12/89) FO 371/11506. Reports by Salisbury-Jones, 10 Sept, and 6 Oct. 1925, AIR 23/87; 4 Nov. 1925, AIR 23/88; 19 April and 5 May 1926, AIR 23/89. 23 Report by Salisbury-Jones, 5 May 1926, AIR 23/89. 24 Christienne and Lissarrague, Histoire de VAviation Militaire Française, 225. Smart to Chamberlain, 2 Dec. 1925 (E7721/357/89); and 9 Dec 1925 (E7796/357/89),- both in FO 371/10853. Reports by Salisbury-Jones, 20 Aug. 1925, AIR 23/86; 6 Oct. 1925, AIR 23/ 87; 12 and 30 Nov. 1925, AIR 23/88; 5 May 1926, AIR 23/89. 25 Report by Salisbury-Jones, 22 Dec. 1926, AIR 23/89. 26 Report by Salisbury-Jones, 22 Dec. 1925, AIR 23/89. Vaughan-Russell to Chamberlain, 1 April 1926 (E2398/12/89) and 29 April 1926 (E2976/12/89) FO 371/11506; 30 June 1926 (E4249/12/89) and 27 July 1926 (E4703/12/89 FO 371/11507. The Times, 27 Oct 1925 (E6615/357/89) FO371/10851. Smart to Chamberlain, 15 Oct 1925 (E6607/357/

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N O T E S TO pp. 195-204 89) FO371/10851. 27 Vaughan-Russell to Chamberlain, 24 April 1926 (E2842/12/89) and 6 May 1926 (E3057/12/89) FO 371/11506; 7 June 1926 (E3678/12/89), 9 June 1926 (E3760/12/89), 30 June 1926 (E4249/12.89) and 3 Aug. 1926 (E4743/12/89) FO 371/11507. Smart to Chamberlain, 31 Jan. 1926 (E973/12/89) F 0 371/11505. Hole to Chamberlain, 19 Aug. 1926 (E5167/12/89) FO 371/11507. Reports by Salisbury-Jones, 17 June 1926, AIR 23/ 89; 5 Aug. 1926, AIR 23/90. Article in L'Orient of 8 Nov. 1926, AIR 23/91 28 Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate, 177-9. Smart to Chamberlain, 25 Oct. 1925 (E6884/357/89) FO 371/10851. The Times 27 Oct. 1925 29 Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate, 196. Vaughan-Russell to Chamberlain, 12 April (E2514/12/89) 12 May (E3243/12/89) and 19 May 1926 (E3351/12/89) FO 371/ 11506 and 7 June 1926 (E3678/12/89) FO 371/11507. Report by Salisbury-Jones, 23 Sept. 1926, AIR 23/90. Report by Codrington, 18 Dec. 1926, AIR 23/91 30 Khoury, T h e Tribal Shaykh, French Tribal Policy and the Nationalist Movement in Syria Between Two World Wars'. Report by Elliot, 13 May 1929, AIR 23/94 31 Segrè, halo Balbo, 148-9; Mack Smith, Mussolini 's Roman Empire, 15; Mockler, Haile Selassie's War, 55; Segrè, 'Douhet in Italy: Prophet Without Honour?', 71. 'Some Impressions of Fascist Italy III', Daily Telegraph, 12 Jan. 1928, Liddell Hart Papers 10/ 1928/3 32 Mack Smith, Mussolini's Roman Empire, 16-18, 50, 54-5, 173-4; Segrè, halo Balbo, 145-7, 153-7, 188-9. Sullivan, Ph.D. thesis, 367-9 33 Wright, Libya, Chs 1 and 2; Mack Smith, Mussolini's Roman Empire, 36. Sullivan, Ph.D. thesis, 214 34 Mack Smith, Mussolini's Roman Empire, 36-41; Wright, Libya Ch. 2. Sullivan, Ph.D. thesis, 249-55. Hurst to Chamberlain, 10 Feb. 1925 (J540/158/66) FO 371/10914. Palmer to Foreign Secretary, 27 July 1927 (J2167/273/66) FO 371/12394. Dodds to Nation, 21 March 1928 (J1045/34/66) FO 371/13153. Extract from The Times 30 Jan. 1931 (J258/148/66) FO 371/15432 35 Wright, Libya, 34-5; Evans-Pritchard, The Sanussi ofCyrenaica, 175-8; Sullivan, Ph.D. thesis, 252-3. 'The Italian Air Force in the Reconquest of the Fezzan', 516-20. Palmer to Graham, 19 May 1927 (J1521/273/66) and to Foreign Secretary, 17 July 1927 (J2095/ 273/66) FO 371/12394. Palmer to Foreign Secretary 15 Dec. 1927 (J3682/273/66) and 17 Dec. 1927 (J3691/273/66) FO 371/12396. 36 Evans-Pritchard, The Sanussi of Cyrenaica, 187-8; Sullivan, Ph.D. thesis, 247. Dodds to Chamberlain, 11 April 1928 (J1350/34/66) and Ghirlando to Foreign Secretary, 31 July 1928 (J2359/34/66) FO 371/13153 37 Evans-Pritchard, The Sanussi of Cyrenaica, 158-68, 175-85. Palmer to Foreign Secretary, 10 Aug. 1927 (J2308/273/66) and 16 Sept. 1927 (J2634/273/66) FO 371/ 12395. Palmer to Foreign Secretary, 28 May 1929 (J 1590/22/66) and Chafy to Graham, 29 Nov. 1929 (J3368/22/66) FO 371/13883: Extracts from Letters Communicated to the Frontier Administration, 25 Nov. 1929 (J53/53/66) FO 371/14653 38 Segrè, halo Balbo, 294-5 39 Mockler, Haile Selassie's War; Mack Smith, Mussolini's Roman Empire, 59-75; Kieman, European Empires From Conquest to Collapse, 202 40 Mockler, Haile Selassie's War, 94,99,106,117-18,121; Sullivan, Ph.D. thesis, 441. GS Confidential Summary No. 41 (J3730/45/1) FO 371/20167. Military Situation in E. Africa, 9 Oct. 1936, GS (J8220/45/1) FO 371/20168 41 Sullivan, Ph.D. thesis, 374-8, 406 42 Mockler, Haile Selassie's War, 61, 74-5, 86-7; Sullivan, Ph.D. thesis, 523. Ethiopian Foreign Minister to Secretary-General of League, 3 Oct. 1935 (J5628/1/1 ) and Telegram from Barton, 5 Oct. 1935 (J5645/1/1 ) F0371/19141. Report by Barton 8 fan. 1936 (J288/ 45/1) and Ingram to Eden 8 Jan. 1936 (J422/45/1) FO 371/20164. Report by Taylor, 7 Jan. 1936 (J936/45/1) FO 371/20165 43 Mockler, Haile Selassie's War, 67,111. WO Summary No. 31, up to 23 Dec. 1935 (J45/ 45/1) FO 371/20164. WO Summary No. 41, 6 April 1936 J3730/45/1) and WO Summary No. 44, 12 May 1936 (J4582/45/1) FO 371/20167 44 Mockler, Haile Selassie's War, 67, 78. Report 35 from Military Attach-, Adis Ababa,

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N O T E S TO pp. 205 - 207 1 Sept. 1936 (J7690/45/1) FO 371/20167. GS Report on Military Situation in E. Africa, 9 Oct. 1936 (18220/45/1) and Report by Consul Reece, Sept. 1936 (J8658/45/1) FO 371/ 20168 45 Mockler, Haile Selassie’s War, 61, 77, 85,96-7,115,121,125; Sullivan, Ph.D. thesis, 442,445. ReportbyChapman-Andrews,4Dec. 1935(J82/45/l)FO371/20164. Report by Stewart, 20 Jan. 1936 (J1472/45/1) Report by Holt, 18Jan. 1936(J1651/45/l)andWO Summary 37, 18 Feb. 1936 (J1852/45/1) FO 371/20165. Report by Reece, Sept. 1936 (J8658/45/1) FO 371/20168 46 Mockler, Haile Selassie’s War, 11-15, 47, 51,70-2. Report by Stewart, 20 Jan. 1936 (J1472/45/1) FO 371/20165. Report by Barton, 21 March 1936 (J2547/45/1) FO 371/ 20166. Military A ttaches Report H25, 6 April 1936 (J3523/45/1) FO 371/20167 47 Mack Smith, Mussolini’s Roman Empire, 73-4,80. HQ RAF Aden to Air Ministry, 24 Jan 1936 (J962/45/1) FO 371/20165. WO to FO, 18 March 1936 (J2408/45/1) Barton to FO, 20 March 1936 (J2458/45/1) and 21 March 1936 (J2479/45/1) FO 371/20166. 48 Mockler, Haile Selassie’s War, 81, 85-6; Sullivan, Ph.D. thesis, 506, 517, 526, 528. Military A ttaches Report H25, 6 April 1936 (J3523/45/1) FO 371/20167 49 Mockler, Haile Selassie’s War, Chs 13-15. Mack Smith, Mussolini’s Roman Empire, 77-81 50 Sullivan, Ph.D. thesis, 567-570

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES ABD EL KRIM (Mohamed ben Abd el Krim el Khattabi), 1882-1963. Served in administra­ tion of Spanish Morocco; editor for El Telgramma del Rif, 1915; imprisoned by Span­ ish, 1917; resumed newspaper work, 1918; fled to Rif mountains, 1919,- led Rif rebellion against Spain and later France, 1920-26; Amir (head of state) in rebel government, 1923; surrendered to French, 1926; exiled to Réunion in Indian Ocean; released by French to take up residence in French Riviera, 1947; escaped on passage through Suez; died in Cairo. His brother Mhamed (c. 1892-1967) was C-in-C of the Rif Army. ABDULLAH ibn Hussain, 1882-1951. Bom in Mecca, second son of Sharif Hussain; educated Istanbul; represented Mecca in Ottoman Parliament, 1908; active in Arab Na­ tionalist movement from 1914; occupied Transjordan, 1920; R n g of Transjordan, 1946; annexed West Bank into Kingdom of Jordan, 1950; assassinated by Palestinian nation­ alist. ALLENBY, Edmund Henry Hynman (First Viscount Allenby of Megiddo and Felixstowe), 1861-1936. Educated Sandhurst; commissioned Iniskilling Dragoons, 1882; South Africa, 1899-1902; OC 3rd Army, France, 1915-17; C-in-C Egyptian Expeditionary Force, 1917-19; Viscount, 1919; HC Egypt, 1919-25. AMERY, Leopold Charles Maurice Stennett, 1873-1955. Bom in India; educated Harrow and Balliol Oxford; chief correspondent of The Times in The South African War, 18991900; entered Parliament 1911; War Cabinet, 1917; First Lord of the Admiralty, 192224; Secretary of State for India and Burma, 1940-45. BALBO, Italo, 1896-1940. Italian airman and Fascist leader. Educated Florence University and Institute of Social Science, Rome; officer in Alpine Corps in Great War,- led Blackshirt militia on March on Rome, 1922; Under-Secretary of State for Air, 1926; Air Minister, 1929; Air Marshal, 1933; led massed flights across the Atlantic; Governor of Libya,- killed when his plane was shot down by Italian AA fire, Tobruk Harbour. BALDWIN, Stanley (First Earl Baldwin), 1867-1947. Educated Harrow and Cambridge,entered Parliament, 1908; Financial Secretary of Treasury, 1917-21; Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1922-23; Prime Minister, 1923-24,1924-29 and 1935-37; Lord President of the Council, 1931-35; Lord Privy Seal, 1932-34; Earl, 1937. BALFOUR, Arthur James, 1848-1930. Educated Eton and Cambridge; Unionist Prime Minister, 1902-05; First Lord of the Admiralty, 1915-16; Foreign Secretary, 1916-19; Lord President of the Council, 1919-22, 1925-29; Earl, 1922. BEATTY, David (First Earl Beatty 1919), 1871-1936. Naval Cadet, 1884; Naval Secretary to First Lord of the Admiralty, 1911; Commanded Battle Cruisers, 1913-16; C-in-C Grand Fleet, 1916-19; First Sea Lord, 1919-27. BELL, Gertrude Margaret Lowthian, 1886-1926. First woman ever to gain First Class Honours in Modem History at Oxford, 1888; alpinist in Switzerland, 1901 -04; travelled extensively in Asia Minor and Mesopotamia, 1899-1914,- Red Cross, Boulogne, 191415; Arab Intelligence Bureau, Cairo, 1915-16,- Oriental Secretary, Baghdad, 1916-20,- ad­ visor to Sir Percy Cox, Mesopotamia, 1920-22,- Honorary Director of Antiquities, Mesopotamia, 1918-26; died in Baghdad. BONAR LAW, Andrew, 1858-1923. Bom in Canada, educated Glasgow,- leader of Unionist Party, 1911-12 and 1922-3; Colonial Secretary, 1915-16; Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1916-19; Lord Privy Seal, 1919-21; Conservative Prime Minister, 1922-23. BOTTOMLEY, ACM Sir Norman Howard, 1891-1970. Educated Halifax, Université de

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES Rennes; E. Yorks. Regt, 1914-15; RFC, 1915; Egypt, 1921-24; DCAS, 1924-27; OC 4 (AC) Sqn, 1928; IDC, 1930; Instructor RAF Staff College, 1931-33; OC No. 1 (Indian) Group, 1934-37; SASO, HQ Bomber Command, 1938-40; DCAS, 1941 and 1943-45; AOC Bomber Command, 1945-47; IG RAF, 1947-48. BOURDILLON, Sir Bernard Henry, 1883-1948. Bom in Tasmania; educated Tonbridge and Oxford; Indian Civil Service, 1908; Mesopotamia, 1918; temporary Capt., 1918; Maj., 1919; despatches Iraq insurrection; Political Secretary to HC Iraq, 1921; Secretary, 1922; Counsellor, 1924-29; Acting HC, 1925-26; Colonial and Chief Secretary Ceylon, 1929-32; Governor of Uganda, 1932-35,- Governor of Nigeria, 1935-43; died in Jersey. BROOKE-POPHAM, Sir (Henry) Robert (Moore), 1878-1953. Educated Haileybury and Sandhurst; Staff College, 1910,-learned to fly, 1911; RFC France, 1914-18; Commandant RAF Staff College, 1921-26; OC Fighting Area ADGB, 1926; AOC Iraq, 1928-31; Com­ mandant IDC; AOC ADGB; AOC Middle East; Governor of Kenya, 1937-39; C-in-C Far East, 1940-41. CAMM, Sir Sidney, 1893-1966. Aircraft designer of genius. Educated Royal Free School, Windsor,- made model aeroplanes; designed for Martinsyde, 1914-21,- joined Hawkers, 1923; designed Hawker Hart and derivatives; Fury fighter, widely considered one of the most beautiful aeroplanes ever built; Hurricane, Typhoon, Tempest, Sea Fury, Sea Hawk and Hunter. CAVAN, Field-Marshal Frederick Rudolph Lambert Tatty', 1865-. Served South African War and Great War, OC brigade of Guards Division, OC XIV Corps, C-in-C Aldershot, 1920-22, CIGS, 1922-26, Field-Marshal, 1932. CHANCELLOR, Sir John Robert, 1870-1952. Educated Blair Lodge, Polmont & Woolich; RE 1890; served in India; Assistant Military Secretary to CID, 1904; Governor of Mauritius, 1911-16; Governor of Trinidad and Tobago, 1916-21; Governor of Southern Rhodesia, 1923-28; High Commissioner for Palestine and Transjordan, 1928-31. CHARLTON, Air Commodore Lionel Evelyn Oswald, 1879-1958. Educated Brighton College and Sandhurst; Air Attaché Washington 1919-22; bom a Catholic but became a socialist in early 1920s; Senior Air Staff Officer Iraq, 1922-24; protested about British bombing policy in Iraq, 1924,- Retired List, 1928. CHATFIELD, Alfred Emle Montacute (Admiral of the Fleet Viscount Chatfield), 18731967. Entered RN, 1886; Flag Captain to Beatty, 1914-18; DCNS, 1920-22; Third Sea Lord, 1925-28; C-in-C Atlantic Fleet, 1929-30,- C-in-C Mediterranean, 1930-32; First Sea Lord and CNS, 1933-38; Minister for the Coordination of Defence, 1939-40. CHURCHILL, Sir Winston Spencer, 1874-1965. Educated Harrow and Sandhurst; First Lord of the Admiralty, 1911-15; Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, 1915; com­ manded a battalion in France, 1915-16; Minister of Munitions, 1917-19; Secretary of State for War and Air, 1919-21; Colonial Secretary, 1921-22; Conservative MP, 192464,- Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1924-29,- First Lord of the Admiralty, 1939-40; Prime Minister, 1940-45 and 1951-55. COX, Sir Percy Zachariah, 1864-1937. Army, 1884; India, 1884-93; Captain, 1892; Political Resident, Zeila, British Somaliland, 1893; led expedition against tribal uprising at Berbera, 1895,- Political Agent and Consul at Muscat, 1899-1904; Political Resident in the Persian Gulf, 1909-14; knighted, 1911 ; Chief Political Officer MEF, 1914-17; Acting Minister to Teheran, 1918-20; HC Mesopotamia, 1920-23. CULIFFE-LISTER, Philip (First Earl Swinton, né Lloyd-Graham), 1884-1970. President of the Board of Trade, 1922-23, 1924-29, 1931; Colonial Secretary, 1931-35,- Secretary of State for Air, 1935-38; Minister Resident in West Africa, 1942-44; Minister of Civil Aviation, 1944-45; Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, 1951-52; Secretary of State for the Commonwealth, 1953-55. CURZON, George Nathanial, 1859-1925. Educated Eton and Oxford; Viceroy of India,

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 1898-1905; Earl, 1911; Marquis, 1921; Lord Privy Seal, 1915-16; Lord President of the Council and member of War Cabinet, 1916-19; Foreign Secretary, 1919-24; Lord President, 1924-25. DERBY, 17th Earl, Edward Stanley, 1865-1948. Educated Wellington; Secretary of State for War, 1916-18, 1922-24; Ambassador to France, 1918-20. DILL, Field Marshal Sir John Greer 'Dillo' or' Jacko', 1881-1944. Educated Cheltenham and Sandhurst; Army, 1901; South Africa and in Great War; GOC 2nd Infantry Brigade, 1923-26; Instructor at IDC, 1926-28; GS India, 1929-30; Commandant Staff College Camberley, 1931-34; DMOl, 1934-36; GOC Palestine, 1936-37; GOC I Corps BEF France, 1939-40; CIGS, 1940-41; headed British Military Mission Washington, 1941-44. DOBBS, Sir Henry Robert Conway, 1871-1934. Educated Winchester and Brasnose, Oxford; ICS, 1892; served NW Frontier; Political Officer MEF, 1914-16; India, 1916; Foreign Secretary to Government of India, 1919; HC Iraq, 1923-29. DOUGLAS, Marshal of the RAF Sir William Sholto, 1893-1969. Educated Tonbridge and Oxford; RA, 1914; joined RFC as observer on operations, 1915; learned to fly, 1915; civil pilot after the war; rejoined RAF, 1920; AOC Fighter Command, 1940-42; AOC Middle East, 1942-43; AOC Coastal Command, 1944-45; closet socialist who became Labour peer, 1948; Chairman British European Airways, 1949-64. DOUHET, Guilio, 1869-1930. Italian air theorist. Trained as artillery officer; OC Aeronau­ tical Battalion, 1912-15; courtmartialled for criticism of conduct of war, 1917; rehabili­ tated and appointed head of aviation service; author of The Command of the Air, a major work of strategic bombing theory, 1921. DOWDING, Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Caswell Tremenheere 'Stuffy', 1882-1966. Educated Winchester and Woolich; RA, 1900; joined RFC in Great War; Director of Training, 1926-9; AOC Palestine and Transjordan, 1929,- AOC Fighting Area ADGB, 1929-30; Air Member for Research and Development, 1930-36; AOC-in-C Fighter Command, 1936-40. ELLINGTON, Marshal of the RAF Sir Edward Leonard, 1877-1967. Educated Clifton and Woolich; 2nd Lieutenant RA, 1897; learned to fly, 1912; Major, 1914; Deputy Assistant QMG, 1914-15; Major-General, RAF 1918; Director General, Supply and Research, 1919-21; AOC Middle East, 1922-23; AOC India, 1923-26; AOC Iraq, 1926-28; AOC-inC ADGB, 1929-31; Air Member for Personnel, 1931-33,- CAS, 1933-37; InspectorGeneral RAF, 1937-40. FAISAL ibn Hussain, 1885-1933. Bom in Mecca; third son of Sharif Hussain; member of Turkish Parliament, 1913; leader of Arab Revolt against Turks, 1916-18,- King of Syria, 1918-20; deposed by French, July 1920; King of Iraq, 1921-33. FREEMAN, Air Chief Marshal Sir Wilfred Rhodes, 1888-1953. Educated Rugby; DDOI, 1927-28; AOC Palestine and Transjordan, 1930-33; Commandant RAF Staff College, 1933-36; Air Member for Development and Production, 1936-40; Vice-CAS, 1940; Chief Executive MAP, 1942-45. FRENCH, John Denton Pinkstone (Earl French of Ypres 1922), 1852-1925. CIGS, 1912-14; C-in-C BEF, 1914-15; Viscount, 1916,- C-in-C Home Forces, 1915-18; Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 1918-21. GAME, Air Vice-Marshal Sir Philip Woolcott, 1876-1961. Educated Charterhouse; RA, 1895; SA, 1901-2; War Office, 1910-14; Great War, 1914-18,- Director of Training and Organization, Air Ministry, 1919-22; OC RAF India, 1923; Air Member for Personnel, Air Council, 1923-28; Governor of New South Wales, 1930-35; Commissioner of Metropolitan Police, 1935-45. GAMELIN, Maurice-Gustave, 1872-1958. French general. Commanded a division in Great War; Army, COS 1931; COS of National Defence, 1938; C-in-C Allied forces in West, 1940.

[2 3 9 ]

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES GEDDES, Eric Cambell, 1875-1937. Educated Merchiston and Edinburgh; First Lord of Admiralty, 1917-19; Member of War Cabinet, 1919; Minister of Transport, 1919-22; headed committee on public expenditure, 1921, when he wielded the 'Geddes Axe'. GLUBB, John Bagot 'Glubb Pasha', 1897-1986. Educated Sandhurst; with British Army in Europe in Great War; volunteered to serve in Iraq; resigned from army, 1926,- Admin­ istrative Inspector, Iraq, 1926-30; joined Arab Legion, 1930; OC Arab Legion, 1939; dismissed from Jordanian service, 1956; author of several books about Arab history. GRAZIANI, Rodolfo 'Electric Whiskers' (Marchese di Neghelli), 1882-1955. Italian Field Marshal, administrator and Fascist. C-in-C Libya, 1930-34; Governor of Somaliland, 1935-36; Viceroy of Ethiopia, 1936-37; Honorary Governor of Italian East Africa, 1938; defeated in Libya by British, 1940-41; supported Mussolini after Italian armistice in 1943; sentenced to 19 years' imprisonment in 1950, but released the same year; later headed Italian neo-Fascist movement. GUEST, Frederick Edward 'Freddie', 1875-1937. Educated Winchester,- Liberal then Con­ servative MP, 1910-37; Personal Private Secretary to Churchill, 1907-10,- ADC to General French, 1914-16; Chief Whip, 1917-18; Secretary of State for Air, 1921-22. HALDANE, James Aylmer Lowthorpe, 1862-1950. Commissioned Gordon Highlanders, 1882; NW Frontier, 1890s,- South African War,- Military Attaché with Japanese Army, Far East, 1904-05,- OC 3rd Division, 1914-18; C-in-C MEF ,1920-25. HANKEY, Maurice Pascal Alers (Viscount Hankey) 1877-1963. Assistant Secretary CID, 1908-12,- Secretary, CID 1912-38; Secretary to Privy Council, 1923-28; Secretary of the Cabinet, 1916-38; Minister without Portfolio, 1939-40; Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, 1940-41; Paymaster General, 1941-42. HARRIS, Marshal of the RAF Sir Arthur Travers 'Bomber' or 'Butcher', 1892-1984. Brought up in Rhodesia; joined RFC, 1915; served in Iraq, India and Britain in 1920s and 1930s; Deputy Director Plans, 1934-37; AOC Palestine, 1938-39,- AOC 5 Group Bomber Command, 1939-41,- DC AS, 1941-42; AOC-in-C Bomber Command, 1942-45; Manag­ ing Director SA Marine Corporation, 1946-53. HIGGINS, Air Marshal Sir John Frederick Andrews 'Bum and Eyeglass', 1875-1948. Educated Charterhouse and Woolwich; commissioned RA, 1895; South African War,learned to fly, 1912; seconded for four years to RFC; to France with the BEF, 1914-15; OCUBgd, England, 1915; OC HI Bgd, France, 1916; Maj.-Gen. RAF, 1918,- OC Air Forces of the Rhine Army; AOC Iraq, 1924-26; AMSR, 1926-30; Air Marshal, 1929; recalled as AOC India, 1939-40. HO ARE, Samuel John Gurney (Viscount Templewood), 1880-1959. Educated Harrow and New College Oxford; entered Parliament, 1910; Minister for Air, 1922-24 and 1924-29; Secretary of State for India, 1931-35,- Foreign Secretary, 1935; First Lord of the Admiralty, 1936-37; Ambassador to Spain, 1940-44; Viscount, 1944. IBN SAUD, c.1880-1953. Began the reconquest of Saudi lands in Arabia, 1902; founded Ikhwan (Brethren), an extreme puritanical Wahhabi sect; subsidized by the British to fight the pro-Turkish forces of Ibn Rashid, 1916; Sultan of Nejd, 1921 -22; conquered the Hejaz and captured Mecca, 1924; united the Hejaz and Nejd as Saudi Arabia of which he became both King and Iman, 1932; granted the first Arab oil concession to an American oil company, 1933,- became fabulously wealthy by the 1950s and saw the triumph of all he hated. ISMAY, Hastings Lionel 'Pug' (General Lord Ismay), 1887-1967. Educated Charterhouse and Sandhurst; commissioned army, 1905; served in India and Middle East, including Somaliland, 1908-25; Assistant Secretary CID, 1926-30,- Military Secretary to Viceroy of India, 1930-33; GSOl War Office, 1933-36; Deputy Secretary CID, 1936-38; Secretary CID, 1938-40; COS to Minister of Defence, 1940-46. JOUBERT DE LA FERTE, Air Chief Marshal Sir Philip Bennet, 1887-1965. Educated

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES Harrow and Woolich; RFA, 1907; seconded to RFC, 1913; France, 1914-15; Egypt, 191617; Italy, 1917-18; RAF Instructor at IDC, 1927-29; Commandant RAF Staff College, 1930-34; AOC Fighting Area, 1934-36; C-in-C Coastal Command, 1936-37; AOC India, 1937-39; Assistant CAS, 1939-41; C-in-C Coastal Command, 1941-43; DCS SE Asia Command, 1943-45. LEES, Aubrey Trevor Oswald, 1899-1969. Educated Repton and Woolwich; commissioned RA, 1920; attached Royal Welch Fusiliers, Limerick, 1920-21; with Kurdish Cavalry of Iraq Levies, 1922-24; SSO, Ramadi, 1924-26; Administrative Officer, Palestine, 192938; sent on permanent leave after criticizing army brutality during the Arab Revolt, 1938. LLOYD GEORGE, David, 1863-1945. Educated church school; Liberal MP, 1890-1945; Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1908-15; Minister of Munitions, 1915-16; Secretary for War, 1916; Prime Minister, 1916-22; Leader of the Liberal Party, 1926-31; Earl LloydGeorge, 1945. LONDONDERRY, Seventh Marquis, 1878-1949 (Charles Stewart Henry Vane-TempestStewart). Educated Eton and Sandhurst; Member of Air Council, 1919; Under-Secretary of State for Air, 1920-21; Secretary of State for Air, 1931 -35; on friendly terms with Nazi leaders, 1936-37. LUDLOW-HEWITT, Air Chief Marshal Sir Edgar Rainey, 1886-1973. Educated Radley and Sandhurst; Commandant RAF Staff College, 1926-30; AOC Iraq, 1930-32; DOI, 193335; AOC India, 1935-37; C-in-C Bomber Command, 1937-40; Inspector-General RAF, 1940-45. LYAUTEY, Louis-Hubert-Gonzalve, 1854-1934. Educated St Cyr; commissioned in Cav­ alry; served France, Algeria, Indochina; Minister of War, 1916-17; Resident General in Morocco, 1912-16 and 1917-25; Marshal of France, 1921; devoted believer in civilizing virtues of colonialism. MACREADY, General Sir Cecil Frederick Nevil, 1862-1946. Educated Marlborough and Cheltenham; Gordon Highlanders, 1881; Egypt, 1882; South Africa; AG BEF, 1914-16; AG WO, 1916-18; Commissioner Metropolitan Police, 1918-20,- GOC-in-C Forces in Ireland, 1920-22; Retired, 1923. MEINERTZHAGEN, Col. Richard, 1878-1967. Of Danish origin; Educated Harrow; 2nd Lieutenant, Royal Fusiliers, 1899; India, 1899-1902; transferred to KAR, 1902; East Africa, France and Palestine, 1914-18; Field Intelligence, Allenby's Army, 1917-18; WO, 1918-19; member of the British Delegation at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919; Chief Political Officer in Palestine and Syria, 1919-20; Military Advisor, Middle East Department CO, 1921-24. MILNE, George Francis 'Uncle George' (Field-Marshal Lord Milne) 1886-1948. RA, 1885; Omdurman, 1898,- South Africa, 1900-02; Commander British Salonika Force, 1916-18,Commander Army of the Black Sea, 1919-20; General, 1920; Lt. of the Tower of London, 1920-23; GOC-in-C Eastern Command, 1923-26,- CIGS, 1926-33,- Field-Marshal, 1928; Baron, 1933,- Governor and Constable Tower of London, 1933-38. MILNER, Alfred, 1845-1925. Educated Germany, London, Oxford,- Viscount, 1902; member of War Cabinet, 1916-18; Secretary for War, 1918; Colonial Secretary, 1919-21. MITCHELL, Air Chief Marshal Sir William Gore Sutherland 'Ginger Mitch', 1888-1944. Educated Wellington College; Highland Light Infantry, 1909,- seconded to RFC, 1913; France, 1914-1918,- transferred to RAF, 1919,- Waziristan, 1919-20 and 1922-23; AOC Aden, 1928-29; Director of Training, 1929-33; Air Vice-Marshal, 1933; Commandant RAF College Cranwell, 1933-35; AOC Iraq, 1935-37,- Air Member for Personnel, 193739; AOC-in-C RAF Middle East, 1939-40; Inspector General RAF, 1940-41. MONTAGU, Edwin, 1879-1924. Educated City of London and Cambridge; Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, 1916; Minister of Munitions, 1916; Secretary of State for India, 1917-22.

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES MONTGOMERY-MASSINGBERD, Field Marshal Sir Archibald Armar 'Archie', 18711947. Bom Co Tyrone; educated Charterhouse and Woolich; RA, 1891; South Africa,France, 1914-18,- DCGS India, 1920-22; Commander 1st Division, 1922-26,- Lt-Gen., 1926; added Massingberd to his name when his wife inherited the Massingberd estates, 1926; GOC-in-C Southern Command, 1926-31; AG, 1931-33; CIGS, 1933-36. NEWALL, Marshal of the RAF Cyril Louis Norton, 1886-1963. Bom in India; educated Bedford School and Sandhurst; Royal Warwickshire Regt, 1905; Indian Army, 1909,RAF, 1919; DCAS, 1926-30; AOC Wessex Bombing Area, 1931,-AOC Middle East, 193134; Air Member for Supply and Organization, 1935-37; CAS, 1937-40; GovernorGeneral and C-in-C New Zealand, 1941-46. ORMESBY-GORE, William George Arthur (Fourth Baron Harlech), 1885-1965. Conserva­ tive MP, 1910-38,- Assistant Secretary War Cabinet, 1917-18; Assistant Political Officer, Palestine, 1918; member of British Delegation (Middle East Section) to the Paris Peace Conference, 1919; British Representative on the Permanent Mandates Commis­ sion of the League of Nations, 1920; Under-Secretary for the Colonies, 1922-24 and 1924-29; Colonial Secretary, 1936-38,- HC, South Africa, 1941-44. PEIRSE, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Edmund Charles, 1892-1970. Educated Monkton Combe School and King's College, London; Great War, 1914-18; DDOI, 1930-33,- AOC Palestine and Transjordan, 1933-36; DCAS, 1937-40,- AOC Bomber Command, 194042,- AOC-in-C India, 1942-43,- Air C-in-C SE Asia Command, 1943-44. PLUMER, Herbert Charles Onslow, 1857-1932. Educated at Eton; 1st York and Lancasters, 1876; Served in India and Sudan; Staff College, 1890; SA 1896; Staff Officer, Aldershot, 1896-97; South African War, 1899-1902,- OC 5th Division, 1906-09,- OC II Corps, 1914; GOC 2nd Army, 1915; Governor of Malta, 1919-24; HC Palestine, 1925; HC Palestine and Transjordan, 1928; resigned, 1928; Viscount, 1929. PORTAL, Marshal of the RAF Charles Frederick Algernon, 1893-1972. Educated Winches­ ter and Oxford; Air Staff, 1931-34; AOC Aden, 1934-35; Director of Operations, 193839; Air Member for Personnel, 1939-40; C-in-C Bomber Command, 1940; CAS, 194145,- Controller of Atomic Energy Ministry of Supply, 1946-51,- Chairman BAC, 1960-8. RAWLINSON, Henry Seymore 'Rawly' (General Lord Rawlinson), 1864-1925. Educated Eton and Sandhurst; Rifle Brigade, 1884; Coldstream Guards, 1892,- Sudan, 1898; South Africa; Commandant Staff College, 1903-06; Commander 3rd Division, 1910-14; Commander 4th Division, 1914; Commander IV Corps, 1914-15,- OC 4th Army, 19151919; GOC-in-C Aldershot, 1919-20; C-in-C India, 1920-25. SALISBURY-JONES, Maj.-Gen. Sir (Arthur) Guy, 1896-1985. Educated Eton,- 1st Coldstreams, 1914-18; Ecole Spéciale Militaire, St Cyr, 1920-21; Liaison Officer Beirut, 1924-26; Staff College, 1932-34; Palestine, 1938-39,- Head of Military Mission to SA, 1941-44; SHAEF, 1944-45; Military Attaché, Paris, 1946-49. SALMOND, Air Chief Marshal Sir (William) Geoffrey (Hanson), 1878-1933. Educated Wellington and Sandhurst; GOC RFC and RAF Middle East, 1916-22; Air Member for Supply and Organization, 1922-27; AOC India, 1927-31; C-in-C ADGB, 1931-33; CAS, 1933. SALMOND, Marshal of the RAF Sir John Maitland 'Jack', 1881-1968. Director General Military Aeronautics, 1917; C-in-C RFC and RAF France, 1918-19; AOC Iraq, 1922-24; C-in-C ADGB, 1925-29; Air Member for Personel, 1929-30; CAS, 1930-33; Director of Armament Production MAP, 1940-45. SAMUEL, Herbert Louis (First Viscount Samuel of Mount Carmel and of Texteth), 18701953. Social worker in Whitechapel; Liberal MP from 1902; one of the first Jewish members of the Cabinet; Postmaster-General, 1910-14 and 1915-16,- Home Secretary, 1916,- HC Palestine, 1920-25,- Leader of Liberal Party, 1931-35; Viscount, 1937; Presi­ dent of British (later Royal) Institute of Philosophy, 1931-59.

[242]

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES SIMON, Sir John Allesbrook, 1873-1954. Educated Fettes and Oxford; Attorney-General, 1913-15; Home Secretary, 1915-16; Foreign Secretary, 1931-35; Home Secretary, 193537; Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1937-40; Lord Chancellor, 1940-45. SLESSOR, Marshal of the RAF Sir John Cotesworth, 1897-1979. Bom in India; educated Halibury; RFC in France, Egypt and Sudan, 1915-18; Air Staff, 1928-30; Instructor, Staff College Camberley, 1931-34; RAF India, 1935-37; Director of Plans, 1937-41; AOC 5 Group (Bomber Command), 1941; AC AS, 1942-43; AOC-in-C Coastal Command, 1943-44; C-in-C RAF Mediterranean and Middle East, 1944-45; CAS, 1950-52. SMUTS, Jan Christian, 1870-1950. Boer General, British Field Marshal; South African Minister of Defence, 1910-19; Prime Minister of South Africa, 1919-29, 1939-48,member of War Cabinet, 1917-19,- acting head of Committee which advised formation of independent air service, 1917. SYMES, Sir (George) Stewart, 1882-1962. Educated Malvern College and Sandhurst; commissioned Hampshire Regt, served India, SA, Aden; Egyptian Army, 1906; served in Sudan; Private Secretary to Governor-General, 1913-16; Governor N District, Palestine, 1920-25; Resident Aden, 1928-31; Governor Tanganyika, 1931-34,- Gover­ nor-General Sudan, 1934-40. THOMSON, Christopher Birdwood (Brig.-Gen. Lord Thomson) 1875-1930. Bom in India; educated Cheltenham and Woolwich; joined RE, 1894; South African War; Staff College Camberley, 1909-10,- served in Belgium,- Military Attaché Bucharest; Palestine, 1917; Brig.-Gen., 1918; joined Labour Party, 1919,- Secretary of State for Air 1924, 1929-30; created Baron, 1924; died in R 101 airship disaster, 1930. TRENCHARD, Hugh Montague 'Boom' (Marshal of the RAF Lord Trenchard of Wolfeton) 1873-1956. Only half-educated; Army, 1893; South Africa, 1899-1902, seriously wounded; learned to fly, 1912; Assistant Commandant CFS, 1913-14; GOC RFC, 1915-17; AOC Independent Force, 1918; CAS, 1918, 1919-29,- Commissioner Metropolitan Police, 1931-35; Viscount, 1936; Chairman of the Board of United Africa Company, 1936-53. TUDOR, Maj.-Gen. Sir Henry Hugh, 1871-1965. OC 9th Division Artillery, 1916-18; OC 9th Division, 1918; Maj.-Gen., 1919,- Police Advisor, Ireland, 1920; Chief of Police, 1920-22; GOC Palestine, 1922; KCB, 1923. UMAR AL-MUKHTAR, c. 1862-1931. Educated Sanusiya school at Janzur and later Jaghbub; summoned to Kufra to serve against French in Wadi; took prominent part in resistance to Italian invasion from 1911; took foremost part in struggle from 1923; tenacious, ascetic and courageous; Representative-General of Sanussiya; surrendered to Italians in 1931 and hanged by them. WAUCOUPE, Arthur Grenfell, 1874-1947. Educated Repton,* Mesopotamia, 1915-16; GOC 44th Home Counties Division, 1927-29; GOC Northern Ireland, 1929-31; HC Palestine and Transjordan, 1931-38,- Colonel, Black Watch, 1940-47. WAVELL, Archibald Percival (Field Marshal Earl Wavell), 1883-1950. Educated Winches­ ter and Sandhurst,- commissioned Black Watch, 1901; South Africa; India, 1903-1911; France, 1914-16; Military Attaché Russian Army Caucasus, 1916-17; Egyptian Expedi­ tionary Force, 1917-29; OC 2nd Division Aldershot, 1935-37; OC Troops in Palestine and Transjordan, 1937-38,- GOC-in-C Southern Command, 1938-39,- GOC-in-C Middle East, 1939-41; C-in-C India, 1941-43,- Field Marshal and Viscount, 1943; Viceroy, 194346. WEIR, William Douglas (Viscount Weir), 1877-1959. Controller of Aeronautical Supplies, 1917-18; Director-General of Aircraft Production, 1918; Secretary of State for Air, 1918; Member of Advisory Panel to Principal Supply Officers' Committee, 1933-35; indus­ trial advisor to Air Ministry, 1935-38; Viscount, 1938; Director-General of Explosives, Ministry of Supply, 1939-42. WILSON, Arnold Talbot, 1884-1940. Educated Sandhurst; army, 1903; Indian Political

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES Department, 1909; Consul, Mohammerah, 1909-11,- Deputy Chief Political Officer MEF, 1915; Civil Commissioner Mesopotamia and Political Resident Persian Gulf, 1918-20; Advisor to Anglo-Persian Oil Company, 1921-32; Conservative MP, 1933-40; leading advocate of Anglo-German reconciliation after 1933; Pilot Officer, RAF, 193940; killed in action over France, 31 May 1940. WILSON, Field Marshal Sir Henry Hughes, 1864-1922. Educated Marlborough; Royal Irish Regt; Rifle Brigade, 1884; Burma, 1885-89; South Africa; Commandant Staff College Camberley, 1906-10; DMOI, 1910-14; Sub-Chief GS BEF, 1914; Chief Liaison Officer French Armies, 1915; OC IV Corps, 1916; Chief Liaison Officer with Pétain and Nivelle, 1917; Military Representative Supreme War Council, 1917-1918; CIGS, 1918-22; MP for North Down 1922,- assassinated, 22 June 1922. WORTHINGTON-E VANS, Sir Laming, 1868-1931. Educated Eastbome College; solicitor from 1890-1910; Conservative MP from 1910; Secretary of State for War, 1921-22 and 1924-29,- Postmaster-General, 1923-24.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

A. Primary sources, unpublished (i) O fficia l d o cu m e n ts (a). Public Record Office, Kew, London Cabinet Office Papers CAB 2. Committee of Imperial Defence: Minutes of Meetings (Microfilm, Pieces 3-9). CAB 4. Committee of Imperial Defence Memoranda: Miscellaneous or B Papers (Micro­ film, Pieces 7-30). CAB 5. Committee of Imperial Defence Memoranda: Colonial Defence or C Papers (Microfilm, Pieces 3-7). Full of useful information, particularly about Palestine and the Sudan. CAB 6. Committee of Imperial Defence Memoranda: Defence of India or D Papers (Microfilm, Pieces 4-6). CAB 23. Cabinet Minutes, known as Conclusions (Pieces 18-39, 45-101, Microfilm and Photocopies). Usually very brief, but helpful for dating key decisions. A few meetings are recorded in more detail. CAB 24. Cabinet Memoranda (Pieces 92-142 and 158-288, Microfilm). Of fundamental importance for the broad outlines of British strategic policy. A great deal of material on British policy in Mesopotamia in the early 1920s. CAB 50. Oil Board Minutes and Memoranda (Microfilm, Pieces 1-8). Helpful for placing Iraq in the wider context of oil supplies but otherwise of little interest. CAB 53. Meetings and Memoranda of the Chiefs of Staff (from 1923) (Pieces 1-54, Microfilm). Much of the most interesting material is duplicated in CAB 24 and in the CID memoranda, but nonetheless valuable. CAB 54. Meetings and Memoranda of the Deputy Chiefs of Staff (from 1932) (Microfilm, Pieces 1-11). CAB 55. Joint Planning Committee: Minutes (Microfilm, Pieces 1-3). Air Ministry Papers AIR 2. Air Ministry: Correspondence. Most of the technical data was drawn from this class. Some informative files on Aden, Yemen and the Red Sea area. AIR 5. Air Historical Branch Records: Series II (1914-40). The most important class of Air Ministry records for the interwar period, with files on every area policed by the RAF (including Britain). The very size of the class makes it somewhat difficult to use. The bound volumes of operation reports are especially valuable. AIR 8. Papers of the Chief of the Air Staff. Material on most of the broader questions of air policy at home and in the Empire. Includes a thick bundle of files on the RAF in the General Strike. AIR 9. Directorate of Plans. AIR 20. Unregistered Papers. Another very large class, with good material on the Sudan and some technical files. AIR 23. RAF Overseas Commands. Papers generated by RAF headquarters overseas. A large class, with over 700 files from Iraq alone. The documents are often undated and somewhat haphazardly organized. There is an excellent run of intelligence material about the Syrian revolt of 1925-27. Some other good material on the Assyrian Levies. War Office Papers WO 32. War Office General Correspondence. A huge class of documents on a multitude of subjects. The 'O' series deals with overseas commands.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Colonial Office Papers CO 730. Iraq, Correspondence. Numerous files on the Iraq Army and Levies. CO 732. Middle East, Original Correspondence. Foreign Office Papers FO 371. Foreign Office, General Correspondence. A wealth of information about the role of air power in Syria, Morocco, Libya and Abyssinia. Also a good run of files about the Assyrians in Iraq. (b) Chatham House, St fames' Square, London Macdonald A. C., The Past and Future of the Assyrians, lecture delivered to Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House, 28 May 1936, (Reference 8/408). (c) Quai D'Orsay, Paris Transcripts of reports written by the French liaison officer in Jersusalem during the mid1920s. These have been used to illuminate Lord Plumer's reorganization of the defence forces of the Palestine Mandate.

(ii) Private papers (a) Public Record Office, Kew, London Dill Papers (WO 282, Pieces 1-6). The papers of Lt-Gen. Sir John Dill (GOC Palestine, 193638). A number of letters which shed some light on the removal of Peirse in 1936. Hankey Papers (CAB 63, Pieces 25-82, Microfilm). The papers of Sir Maurice Hankey. Mostly duplicates of material contained elsewhere (particularly in CAB 24) but including a few interesting letters from the 1920s. (b) RAF Museum, Hendon Bottomley Papers (B2234-B2312 and A790-A803). The papers of ACM Sir Norman Howard Bottomley. Many Staff College lectures, lecture précis and memoranda about the problems of air policing. Much very useful material on India in the 1930s. Carmichael Papers (AC 77/6). The papers of Group Captain George Ivan Carmichael. Includes a typescript autobiography with reference to service in Ireland, Egypt, Palestine, India and Iraq, 1919-30. Courtney Papers (AC 77/24 and AC 77/31). The papers of ACM Sir Christopher Lloyd Courtney. Photographs, awards, appointments, letters and diaries. Mostly personal or irrelevant to air matters, but including some rare photographs of the Assyrian Levies. Evill Papers (AC 74/8). The papers of Air Vice-Marshal Sir Douglas Evill. Diary letters and a photograph album of service with 70 Squadron in Iraq, 1923-24. MacGregor Papers (B2670-B2676). The papers of Air Vice-Marshal Andrew MacGregor. A small collection which includes a diary from Iraq in 1927; material on the Assyrians; and a memoir of service in Egypt and Sudan in the 1920s. Salmond Papers (B2580-B2662). The papers of Air Vice-Marshal Sir John Salmond. A large collection, by air force standards. Contains a run of very useful reports, letters and diaries concerning Salmond's fact-finding mission to India in 1922. Trenchard Papers (MFC 76/1). The papers of Sir Hugh Trenchard (CAS, 1919-29). The Trenchard papers are the largest single collection left by any RAF officer in the inter­ war period. They are a source of first importance for the history of air policing. The original documents are still held by the present Lord Trenchard, and the Hendon collection is of microfilm copies. Some material has been withheld, and there are important gaps. (c) Liddell Hart Centre, King's College, London Brooke-Popham Papers. The papers of ACM Sir Henry Robert Moore Brooke-Popham. A large collection, with interesting material about the Akhwan raiders, the Arab Revolt in Palestine and the Assyrian refugees in Iraq.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY femay Papers. The papers of Gen. Hastings Lionel Ismay. Several files concerning operations in Somaliland, 1914-20, and subsequent inter-service controversies. Lees Papers. The papers of Lt Aubrey Trevor Oswald Lees. His letters to his parents include valuable information about the Kurdish Levy in Iraq in the 1920s, and about the dis­ turbances in Palestine in 1929 and 1936-38. Liddell Hart Papers. The papers of Captain Basil Liddell Hart. A huge collection of over 1,000 boxes, with a wealth of material on all manner of military and political subjects, although the air is somewhat underrepresented. I have taken only a few samples from the collection of newspaper cuttings and private correspondence.

B. Primary sources, published (i) P u b lish ed d o cu m e n ts a n d m e m o irs Carr, S. J., You Are Not Sparrows: A Light-Hearted Account of Flying Between the Wars (London: Allen, 1975). Charlton, L. E. O., Charlton (London: Faber, 1931). Coleman, E., The Autobiography of a Royal Air Force Aircraft Apprentice (RAF Hendon Xerox Presentation Copy, 1980). Embry, B., Mission Completed (London: Methuen, 1956). Gibbs, G. E., Survivor's Story (London: Hutchinson, 1956). Gilbert, M. (ed.) Winston S. Churchill, vol. 4, Companion (3 parts, 1977). Glubb, J. B., War in the Desert: An RAF Frontier Campaign (London: Hodder & Stoughton, I960); Arabian Adventures: Ten Years of Joyful Service (London: Cassell, 1978). Gray, J. A., Memoirs of an Airman 1918-1954 (n.d.). Harris, A. T., Bomber Offensive (London: Collins, 1947). Hudson and North (eds.), My Dear PM: R. G. Casey's Letters to S. M. Bruce, 1924-29. Jeffery, K. (ed.), The Military Correspondence of Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson 1918-1922 (Army Records Society, 1985). Lee, A. S. G., Fly Past: Highlights From a Flyer's Life (London: Jarrolds, 1974). Lee, D. J. P., Never Stop the Engine When It's Hot (London: Thomas Harmsworth, 1983). Lewis, C., Sagittarius Rising (London: Peter David, 1936). Perry-Keene, A., Reflected Glory: An Autobiography (1980). Samuel, H., Memoirs (London: Cresset Press, 1945). Symes, S., Tour of Duty (London: Collins, 1946). Vincent, S. F., Flying Fever (London: Jarrolds, 1972). (ii) C o n te m p o ra ry p u b lish e d w o rk s Baden-Powell, B., 'How Airships are Likely to Affect War', JR U SI54 (1910) 555-81. Bannerman, A., 'The Difficulty of Aerial Attack', JRUSI 53 (1909) 638-45. Bladin, F. M., 'The Improvement of Mobility of Air Units for Inter-reinforcements Between Commands', RAF Quarterly Prize Essay, 1930-31, RAF Quarterly 2 (1931) 537-53. Borton, A. E., 'The Use of Aircraft in Small Wars', JRUSI 65 (1920) 310-19. —------ ~ Brooke-Popham, R. H., 'The Air Force', JRUSI 65 (1920) 43-70. Burchall, P. R., 'Aerial Cooperation with Survey, Map-Making and Exploring Expeditions', JRUSI 67 (1922) 112-27. Burke, C. T., 'Aeroplanes of Today and Their Use in War', JRUSI 55 (Jan.-June 1911) 62232. Callwell, C. E., Small Wars: Their Principles and Practice (3rd edn, London: HMSO, 1906). Capper, J. E., 'Military Ballooning', JRUSI 50 (July-Dee. 1906) 890-909. Charnier, J. A., 'The Use of the Air Force for Replacing Military Garrisons', JRUSI 66 ( 1921 ) 205-16. Churchill, W. S., The World Crisis: The Aftermath (London: Thornton Butterworth, 1929). Coggle, C. K. J., 'The Nuer Chiefs at Khartoum', RAF Quarterly 3 (1932) 173-81. Compton, T. E., 'The Pacification of Morocco', JRUSI 68 (1923) 615-22. Douglas, W. S., 'A Floatplane Tour in the Southern Sudan', RAF Quarterly 2 (1931) 211-

221.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Douhet, G., The Command of the Air, trans. D. Ferrari (London: Faber, 1943) Edmonds, C. H. K., 'Air Strategy', JR U SI69 (1924) 191-210. Flight magazine, 1922-32. 'French Morocco, a Summary of Events: Summer 1925', fRUSI 70 (1925) 759-64. 'French Morocco: The Situation Before the Outbreak of the Present Hostilities', fRUSI 70 (1925) 540-4. Fullerton, J. D., 'Recent Progress in Aerial Navigation', fRUSI, 51 (Jan-June 1907) 11-15. Gama (Cdt), 'Aéronautique Colonial' in M. and J. Brunoff (eds) L'Aéronautique Militaire, Maritime, Coloniale et Marchande (Paris, n.d. c. 1931). Garrod, A. G. R., 'Air Strategy', RAF Quarterly 1 (1930) 28-36. Gwynn, C. W., Imperial Policing (London: Macmillan, 1934). Haldane, A., T h e Arab Rising in Mesopotamia, 1920', fRUSI 68 (1923) 63-81. Hannay, A. P. C , 'Empire Air Policy', RAF Quarterly 1 (1930) 643-9. Howard-Williams, E. L. A., '1930 West African Flight', RAF Quarterly 2 (1931) 573-85. Joubert de la Ferté, P. B., 'The Supply and Training of Officers of the Royal Air Force in Time of War', fRUSI 69 (1924) 37-51. Kingsley Heath, A. J., 'The Palestine Police Force under the Mandate', Police Journal 1 (1928) 78-88. Kingston-McCloughry, E. J., The Gordon-Shephard Memorial Prize Essay, 1933, RAF Quarterly 5 (1934) 249-74. Kingston-McCloughry, J., 'An Air Tour in India', RAF Quarterly 1 (1930) 342-50. McClaughry, W. A., The Gordon-Shephard Memorial Prize Essay, 1929, RAF Quarterly 1 (1930) 451-67. Mackay, C. J., 'The Influence in the Future of Aircraft Upon Problems of Imperial Defence', Gold Medal (RAF) Prize Essay for 1921, fRUSI 67 (1922) 274-310. Mitchell, W., Winged Defense (New York and London: Putnams, 1925). Perry-Keene, A. L. A., 'Mosul to Moascar', RAF Quarterly 2 (1931) 202-10. Reid, W. F., 'The Use of Explosives in Aerial Warfare with Some Remarks on Methods of Defence', fRUSI 55 (Jan.-June 1911) 734-49. Report on the Air Operations in Afghanistan, RAF Quarterly 1 (1930) 45-68. 'Role of Special Service Officers in the Air Intelligence Organization, The', RAF Quarterly 2(1931)51-8. Royal Air Force Display, Hendon: Programmes, 1924-37. Salmond, J., 'The Air Force in Iraq', JR U S I70 ( 1925) 483-98. ‘ Skoulding, F. A., 'With "Z " Unit in Somaliland', RAF Quarterly 2 (1931) 387-96. Smythies, B. E., 'The Civilizing Influence of Aircraft and of Imperial Air Communications', R M Groves Prize Essay, 1930, RAF Quarterly 1 (1930) 433-50. Spicer, R. G. B., 'The Recent Palestine Riots', Police Journal 7 (1934) 350-6. Stark, F., The Southern Gates of Arabia: A Journey in the Hadramaut (London: John Murray, 1936). Vachell, J. L., 'Air Control in South-Western Arabia', RAF Quarterly 2 (1931) 1-7. Wallingford, S., 'Western Samoa Operations, 1930: Air Report', RAF Quarterly 1 (1930) 637-42. Waugh, E., Remote People, (London: Duckworth, 1985, orig. edn, 1931). Wilson, A. T., 'The Iraq Police', Police fournal 1 (1928) 31-8.

C. Secondary sources (i) A rtic le s a n d chapters al-Adhami, M. M., 'The Elections for the Constituent Assembly in Iraq, 1922-4', in A. R., Kelidar (ed.) The Integration of Modern Iraq (1979). Arnold, D., 'The Armed Police and Colonial Rule in South India, 1914-1947', Modern Asian Studies 11 (1977) 101-25; 'Looting, Grain Riots and Government Policy in South India 1918', Past and Present 84 (1979) 111-45. Bateman, D. C , 'Flight from Sulaimaniya', Aeroplane Monthly (August 1981) 440-43.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Beach, D., ' //Chimurenga,/: The Shona Rising of 1896-7', Journal of African History 20 (1979). Beaumont, R. A., 'A New Lease on Empire: Air Policing, 1919-1939', Aerospace Historian 26 (1979) 84-90. Beck, P. J., ' "A Tedious and Perilous Controversy": Britain and the Settlement of the Mosul Dispute, 1918-1926', Middle Eastern Studies 17 (1981) 256-76. Belich, J., 'The Victorian Interpretation of Racial Conflict and the New Zealand Wars: An Approach to the Problem of One-Sided Evidence', Journal of Imperial and Common­ wealth History 15 (1987) 123-47. Bowyer, C., 'De Havilland DH9A (RAF 1918-1930)', in C. W. Cain (ed.) Aircraft in Profile Vol. 14(1974). Braudel F., 'Histoire et Sciences Sociales: La Longue Durée', Annales: ESC (1958); 'Personal Testimony', Journal of Modem History, 44 (1972) 448-67. Brune, L. H., 'An Effort to Regulate Aerial Bombing: The Hague Commission of Jurists, 1922-23', Aerospace Historian 29 (1982) 183-5. Cooper, M., 'The Development of Air Policy and Doctrine on the Western Front 19141918', Aerospace Historian 28 (1981) 38-51. Cosmas, G. A., 'The Formative Years of Marine Corps Aviation, 1912-1939', Aerospace Historian 24(1977) 82-93. Cox, J. L., 'A Splendid Training Ground: The Importance to the Royal Air Force of its Role in Iraq, 1919-32', Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 13 (1984) 157-84. Crawford, E. R., 'The Sikh Wars, 1845-9', in B. Bond (ed.), Victorian Military Campaigns (1967). Dann, U., 'The Political Confrontation of Summer 1924 in Transjordan', Middle Eastern Studies 12 (1976) 159-68. Ferris, J., 'The Theory of a 'French Air Menace': Anglo-French Relations and the British Home Defence Air Force Programmes of 1921-25', Journal of Strategic Studies 10 (1987). Fieldhouse, D., 'Can Humpty-Dumpty be Put Together Again? Imperial History in the 1980s', Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 12 (1983) 11-23. French, D., 'The Dardenelles, Mecca and Kut: Prestige as a Factor in British Eastern Strategy, 1914-1916', War and Society 5 (1987) 45-61. Gray, R., 'Bombing the Mad Mullah, 1920', JR U S I135 (1980).-------Gwassa, G. C. K., 'African Methods of Warfare During the Maji-Maji War, 1905-1907', in B. A. Ogot (ed.(, War and Society in Africa (1972, 1974). Halley, J., 'The Kabul Raid', Aeroplane Monthly (August 1979) 437-42. Hardy, M. J., 'Aviation in Afghanistan', Air Pictorial 34 (1972) 122-7. Hemphill, P. P. J., 'The Formation of the Iraq Army, 1921-33', in A. R. Kelidar (ed.) The Integration of Modern Iraq (1979). Hess, R. L., 'The "Mad Mullah" and Northern Somalia', Journal of African History 5 (1964) 415-33. Hexter, J. H., 'Fernand Braudel and the Monde Braudellien', Journal of Modern History 44 (1972) 480-539. Hinds, J. R., 'Bombs Over Mexico', Aerospace Historian 31 (1984) 194-201. Iliffe, J., 'The Organization of the Maji Maji Rebellion', Journal of African History 8 (1967) 495-512. Jeffery, K., 'Sir Henry Wilson and the Defence of the British Empire, 1918-1922', Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 5 (1977) 270-93. Kennett, L., 'Sources for Aviation History in Paris', Aerospace Historian 25 (1978) 50-2. Khoury, P. S., 'The Tribal Shaykh, French Tribal Policy, and the Nationalist Movement in Syria Between Two World Wars', Middle Eastern Studies 18 (1982) 180-93. Killingray, D., "'A Swift Agent of Government": Air Power in British Colonial Africa, 1916-1939', Journal of African History 25 (1984) 429-44. Kopietz, H. H., 'The Use of German and British Archives in the Study of the Middle East: The Iraqi Coup d'Etat of 1936', in A. R. Kelidar (ed.), The Integration of Modern Iraq (1979). Lacoste, Y., 'Braudel Géographe' in Aymard et a l, Lire Braudel.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Lainé, S., 'L'Aéronautique Militaire Française au Maroc (1) 1911-1939', Revue Historique des Armées 5 (1978) 107-19. Law, R., 'Horses, Firearms and Political Power in Pre-Colonial West Africa', Past and Present 72(1976) 112-32. Leary, W. M., 'A Short History of the Royal Thai Air Force', Aerospace Historian 29 (1982) 93-7. Legassick, M., 'Firearms, Horses and Samorian Army Organization 1870-1898', Journal of African History 7 (1966) 95-115. Ogot, B. A. and Ochieng, W. R., 'Mumboism: An Anti-Colonial Movement', in B. A. Ogot War and Society in Africa. Omissi, D. E., 'Britain, the Assyrians and the Iraq Levies, 1919-1932', Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 17 (1989) 301-22. Parton, J., 'The Thirty-One Year Gestation of the Independent USAF', Aerospace Historian 34(1987) 150-57. Petit, E., 'Histoire des Forces Aeriennes Française (HI) 1919-1939', Icare 97 (1981) 56-107. Pool, D., 'From Elite to Class: The Transformation of Iraqi Political Leadership', in A. R. Kelidar (ed.) The Integration of Modern Iraq. "Rabbath, E., 'L'Insurrection Syrienne de 1925-1927', Revue Historique 267 (1982) 405-47. Ranger, T. O., 'Connexions Between "Primary Resistance" Movements and Modem Mass Nationalism in East and Central Africa (1), Journal of African History 9 (1968) 437-53. Revel, J., 'Histoire et Sciences Sociales: Les Paradigmes des Annales', Annales 34 (1979) 1360-76. Segré, C. G., 'Douhet in Italy: Prophet Without Honour?', Aerospace Historian 26 (1979) 69-80. Smith, M., 'The RAF and Counter-Force Strategy Before World War H', JR U SI121 (1976) 68-72. Sweetman, J., 'The Smuts Report of 1917: Merely Political Window-Dressing?', Journal of Strategic Studies 4 (1981) 153-74. ■ Townshend, C , 'Civilization and "Frightfulness": Air Control in the Middle East Between the Wars', in C. Wrigley (ed.) Warfare, Diplomacy and Politics: Essays in Honour of A. J. P. Taylor (1986) Trevor-Roper, H., 'Fernand Braudel, the Annales and the Mediterranean', Journal of Modern History, 44 (1972) 468-79. White, G., 'Firearms in Africa: An Introduction', Journal of African History 12 (1971 ) 17384. -Young, A. J., 'Royal Air Force, North West Frontier, India, 1915-1939', JRUSI 127 (1982) 59-64. Young, R. J., 'The Strategic Dream: French Air Doctrine in the Inter-War Period, 1919-39', Journal of Contemporary History 9 (1974) 57-76.

(ii) B oo ks -Angelucci, E. and Matricardi, P., World Aircraft 1918-1935 (Maidenhead: Sampson Low, 1977). Arnold, D., Police Power and Colonial Rule: Madras 1859-1947 (Delhi, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986); Famine: Social Crisis and Historical Change (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988). Aymard, M. et al., Lire Braudel (Paris: éditions la Découverte 1988). Belich, J., The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian Interpretation of Racial Conflict (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1986) Bialer, U., The Shadow of the Bomber: The Fear of Air Attack and British Pohtics, 193239 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1980). Bond, B., Victorian Military Campaigns, (London: Hutchinson, 1967); Liddell Hart: A Study of His Military Thought (London: Cassell, 1977); British Military Policy Between the Two World Wars (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980). Boyle, A., Trenchard: Man of Vision (London: Collins, 1962). Braudel, F., The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, trans. Siân Reynolds (London: Collins, 1973); On History, trans. Sarah Matthews (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1980).

[2 5 0 ]

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[2 5 2 ]

BIBLIOGRAPHY Pustay, J. S., Counterinsurgency Warfare (London: Collier-Macmillan; 1965) Ranger, T. O., Revolt in Southern Rhodesia, 1896-7: A Study in African Resistance (London: Heinemann, 1967). Rawlings, ). D. R., Fighter Squadrons of the RAF and their Aircraft (London: Macdonald, 1969). Richards, D., Portal of Hungerford (London: Heinemann, 1977). Roskill, S., British Naval Policy Between the Wars (2 vols, London: Collins, 1968 and 1976); Admiral of the Fleet Earl Beatty, the Last Naval Hero: An Intimate Biography (New York: Atheneum, 1981). Segré, C. G., Italo Balbo: A Fascist Life (Berkeley and London: California University Press, 1987). Shikara, A. A. R., Iraqi Politics 1921-41: The Interaction Between Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy (London: Laam, 1987). Sluglett, P., Britain in Iraq 1914-1932 (London: Ithaca, 1976). Smith, M. S., British Air Strategy Between the Wars (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1984). Stoianovich, T., French Historical Method: The Annales Paradigm (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press 1976). Stokes, E. T., The Peasant and the Raj: Studies in Agrarian Society and Peasant Rebellion in Colonial India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978); The Peasant Armed: The Indian Revolt of 1857 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986). Talbott, f., The War Without a Name: France in Algeria, 1954-1962 (London: Faber, 1981). Tarbush, M. A., The Role of the Military in Politics: A Case Study of Iraq to 1941 (London: KPI, 1982). Thetford, O., Aircraft of the Royal Air Force (7th edn, London: Putnam, 1958). Till, G., Air Power and the Royal Navy, 1914-1945: A Historical Survey (London: Macdonald & Janes, 1979). Townshend, C , The British Campaign in Ireland 1919-21: The Development of Political and Military Policies (London: Oxford UP, 1975); Britain's Civil Wars: Counterinsur­ gency in the Twentieth Century [London: Faber, 1986). Vatikiotis, P. J., The History of Egypt: From Muhammad Ali to Sadat (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1985). Wasserstein, B., The British in Palestine: The Mandatory Government and the ArabJewish Conflict 1917-1929 {London: Royal Historical Society, 1978). Wasserstrom, R. (ed.), War and Morality (Belmont, Ca., 1970). Weinstock, N., Zionism: False Messiah (London: Zed Press, 1979). Woolman, D. S., Rebels in the Rif: Abd el Krim and the Rif Rebellion (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1969). Wright, J., Libya: A Modern History (London: Croom Helm, 1982). Wright, R., Dowding and the Battle of Britain (London: Macdonald, 1969). Wrigley, C. J. (ed.), Warfare, Diplomacy and Politics: Essays in Honour of A. J. P. Taylor (London: Hamilton, 1986).

(iii) U n p u b lish e d theses a n d papers Arnold, D., '"Criminal Tribes" and "Martial Races": Crime and Social Control in Colonial India'. Paper for University of London, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, Post­ graduate Seminar (Dec. 1984). Ferris, J. O. R., T h e Evolution of British Strategic Policy, 1919-26'.University of London, Ph.D. thesis (1986). Nadhmi, W. J. O., T he Political, Intellectual and Social Roots of the Iraqi Independence Movement, 1920'. University of Durham, Ph.D. thesis (1974). Omissi, D. E., 'Palestine Under Air Control, 1922-1936'. Research Paper presented at the Institute of Historical Research (1987 and 1988). Rudd, J., T h e Establishment of the Transjordan Frontier Force'. MA Paper, SOAS, London (1985) Sullivan, B. R., 'A. Thirst For Glory: Mussolini, the Italian Military and the Fascist Regime, 1922-1936'. University of Colombia, Ph.D. thesis (1984)

[2 5 3 ]

BIBLIOGRAPHY Sweetman, 'Strategic Bombing and the Origins of the Royal Air Force'. University of London, Ph.D. thesis (1983). Waldie, D. J. P., 'Relations Between the Army and the Royal Air Force 1918-1939'. University of London, Ph.D. thesis (1980).

[254]

Index

Abd el Krim, 185-6 Abdullah ibn Hussain, 27-8, 212 Abyssinia, see Ethiopia adaptation to air attack, 113-21,193-4, 208,211 concealment, 12,42,74,117-9,189, 193, 201, 205 deception, 121, 204 definition, 113 early warning, 121, 205 protection, 119-20, 188, 194, 201, 205 psychological, 116-7, 189, 194 Aden Police, 69-70 Aden Protectorate, 15, 24-5, 39, 50-2, 54, 59, 62, 69-70, 74, 79, 88-90, 93, 96-7,103,105,118,121,129,136-8, 141, 159-61, 168, 210, 212 Aden Protectorate Levies, 52, 69 Admiralty, 29,33,35,38,51, 76-7, 79, 82, 139, 179,210 advanced landing grounds, 13,97,101, 103 Adwa, 129, 202-3 aerial photography, 15,95-6,167,188, 173, 200, 214 Afghanistan, 9-11,47,88-9,110,130-3, 142, 214 Afridis, 9 air ambulances, 72-3, 187, 192, 200 air blockade, 155-6 air currents, 98-100 air displays, 57,161-2,171-3,197,209

air routes, 20, 96, 135-7, 139, 143-4, 146, 148-9, 173 Air Staff, 21,23-5,32-4,55-6,60-1, 71, 77, 80, 93-4, 99, 105,109, 111, 129, 137-8, 148, 159, 162-3, 165-6, 179 air transport, 32, 71-3, 191-2, 204 airbases Amman, 100-1, 143 Baghdad, 73,128 Bannu, 128 Berbera, 15 Fermoy, 42 Hinaidi, 162 Khartoum, 54, 101 Kirkuk, 72 Kohat, 128 Maan, 143 Miramshah, 122, 128 Razmak, 100 Tank, 13, 128 Singapore, 101 Sora Rhoga, 13 Ziza, 100 aircraft types, 138-45, 149 Breguet 14 A2, 186, 190 Bristol Fighter, 51, 96-8, 100, 130, 138, 167 Caproni, 200 de Havilland DH9A, 96,100-1, 105,138,1424, 152 Hound, 141 Fairey

[2 5 5 )

INDEX

Fox, 141 IDF, 101, 141, 144 General Purpose specification, 1401 Giant, 7 Gotha, 7 Handley Page, 9-10 Hawker Hart, 142,144 Hind, 130-1, 142 Horsley, 139-40 Potez 25,190 Rangoon, 91 RO-1, 200 SM-81, 203 Sopwith Snipe, 152 Vickers Vernon, 72-3 Victoria, 103 Vildebeeste, 139,149,210 Vimy, 152 Vincent, 101 Westland Wapiti, 105,122,129,141, 145 others, 5,142 airships, 137-8 Amery, Leo, 35, 110, 145 Amritsar Massacre, 130-1 Arab Army in Iraq, 28, 61, 64-5,174 Arab Legion, 61, 67-9, 159 armoured cars, 29,31,44,51,61-3,678, 73, 75, 82,93,128,146,189,199, 201, 203 army cooperation, 70-5,82,187-8,191, 202 Assyrians, 35, 64-5, 67, 72 Baghdad, 19, 21-3, 33, 37, 72-3, 96 Balbo, Italo, 171, 197-8, 201, 208 Baldwin Committee, 79 Balfour, Lord, 26, 28, 34,37 balloons, 4-5 Basra, 19, 22-3, 30, 33,37, 63, 212 Beaumont, Roger, 138, 210, 213 Beatty, David, 28, 37, 77 Bedouin, 18,44,52, 74,91-2,196,2001,208

Bell, Gertrude, 27 Blériot, Louis, 5 bombing of towns and cities Adwa, 203 Berlin, 10 Daghabur, 204 Dakka, 9, 10 Damascus, 195-6 Gujranwala, 11, 158 Jalalabad, 9 Kabul, 10-11, 17, 110,132, 158 Kaniguram, 12,13,159 Kataba, 51, 124 London, 6-7,110,178 Makin, 12 Narobi, 12 Sana, 51, 120, 132, 156,158 Sulaymaniyah, 32 Suwayda, 193 Bond, Brian, 95, 163 Boyle, Andrew, 15 Braudel, Fernand, 85, 89, 210 Brooke-Popham, Robert, 46,58 and cannibalism, 170 Cairo Conferences 1921, 25-7, 50, 61, 135, 145 1925, 54-5 Callwell, Charles, 168 cannibals and missionaries, 170, 172, 182 caves, 119, 132-3 Charlton, Lionel, 175-6 Chatfield Committee (1939), 50 Chiefs of Staff Committee, 45, 51, 76, 78 Churchill, Winston, advocates gas, 14, 21,160 and air control in Iraq, 16,19-23,267, 29, 31, 35, 63 and air control in Palestine, 44, 66 appointed Secretary of State for War and Air, 8 as Chancellor of Exchequer, 51, 76 at the Colonial Office, 25 and flying, 36 and Ireland, 42

[2 5 6 ]

INDEX

and mechanized forces scheme, 21, 62 motives for air control, 38 and policing in Britain, 40 political ability, 36-7 relationship with Trenchard, 8 and Somaliland, 6,14 and Transjordan, 27 and violence, 41-2,173-4 Zionist beliefs, 44 Clausewitz, Karl von, 98 Clayton, Anthony, 70, 107, 134 his errors, 40, 42 his ideological bias, 151, 158 his racial stereotypes, 170 Colonial Office, 14, 58, 166 Colwyn Committee, 36 Committee of Imperial Defence, 26, 35, 45, 47, 55, 76-7,131, 139 Cox, Jafna, 19 Cox, Percy, 27-8,30-2, 37, 174 Curzon, George, 30,32,135,174 Damascus, 27, 189-90, 194-6 Darwin, John, 19 Dean, Maurice, 134 delayed action bombs, 118,156,170-1 deserts, 18, 37, 68, 75, 85, 90-3, 103, 135, 146, 196, 201, 208, 211 Desmond, Adrian, 111 dissidence in the RAF, 175-7, 182-3 Dobbs, Henry, 31-5, 37, 171, 174 Douhet, Guilio, 197-8, 203, 206-7 dugouts, 120, 188-9, 205 dust storms, 17, 103, 190 early warning, 121, 133 East Africa, 57-9, 109, 144, 162-3 economic warfare, 88, 156-7, 169 Egypt, 11, 15, 24, 39, 45, 52-3, 67, 72, 90, 102, 104, 141-2, 161, 210 Ellington, Edward, 48,145,147-8,1612 Emergency Powers Act (1920), 41 Escadrille Chérifienne, 188 Ethiopia, 14, 52, 58, 80,129,184, 2017

expenditure, 14,19-21,24-9,31,35-9, 44, 51, 55, 63, 77, 211 an d see Treasury Faisal ibn Hussain, 27-8,30,189 Fascism and air power, 197 Ferris, John, 19, 62 feuds, 85-6, 196 Foreign Office, 24, 82,177 forests, 102 forts Dala, 52,120 Dervish, 15-16 Zeidi, 118-20 French air menance, 34 French, John, 42 Game, Philip, 127, 152-3, 155, 159, 164,171 gas, 14, 21, 160, 182, 185, 200, 206-7 Gavin, R. J. 79 Geddes, Eric, 40 Geddes Committee (1921), 28-9, 52 General Service Medal, 177 General Staff, 61,66, 72 General Strike, 41 Geneva Disarmament Conference, 163, 172,177-82 Gilbert, Martin, 19, 29 Graziani, Rodolfo, 199-200, 206 Great War, 6-8, 16, 43, 50, 62, 65, 69, 71, 95-7, 120, 148, 172, 178, 181, 199,211 Haldane, Aylmer, 23-4, 28,30,37 Hankey, Maurice, 22, 42, 52,165 Harris, Arthur, 49,57-8,100,144,1478, 163 brutality, 154, 158-9 Headrick, Daniel, 2-4 Hendon Display, 162,171-3 Hijaz, 25, 189 Hoare, Samuel, 31,35,37,54-5,69,76, 95, 138, 145, 177 Home Defence Air Force, 34 Hourani, Albert, 91 Hunter Committee, 11, 151

[257]

INDEX

hunting, 146 Hussain, Sharif of Mecca, 25

Kurds, 18,37, 64, 85,154-5 Kut, 19

Ihn Saud, 25, 69,129, 212 Ikhwan, 37,118-19,132,176,182,212, an d see Wahabis Iliffe, John, 114 Iman of Yemen, 25, 50-1, 89, 93, 120, 129, 212 India, 20,47-50,61,69,131,141-2,147, 153, 163, 179, 210 an d see North West Frontier Indian Army, 14, 19-20, 22, 26, 31-2, 48-9, 50, 52, 67, 75, 211 Indian General Staff, 48 India Office, 24 Invergordon mutiny, 41-2 Iraq, 18-39,51,59,61,63-5,85,96,1034, 106, 123, 128, 137, 141, 145-6, 184,208,211-13 rebellion (1920), 23-4, 64,157,169, 196 Iraq Committee Report (1923), 33 Iraq Levies, 30-1, 33, 64-5, 67, 72, 75 Ireland, 39, 42-3, 61, 210 Irish Republican Army, 42

Labour Party, 20,34,174-5 Lausanne Conference, 32 leaflets, 32, 103, 128, 154-5, 159, 171, 205 League of Nations, 33,35,65,202,209 Le Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel, 89 Libya, 5, 198-201, 208 Liddell Hart, Basil, 60-1,163 fascist sympathies, 197 Lloyd George, David, 7, 8, 22, 26, 31 locust swarms, 105-6 Luftwaffe, 34,180, 211

Jeffery, Keith, 19 Jerusalem Conference (1925), 67 justification of bombing alleged barbarity of tribesmen, 170 appeal to modernity, 163-4 myth of collective responsibility, 167-8 myth of surgical strike, 166-7 relative brutality, 169-70 Kedourie, Elie, 22 Keegan, John, 154 Khoury, Philip, 189 Khyber Pass, 9, 89 Kieman, Victor, 178 Killingray, David, 42, 70, 107, 134 King's African Rifles, 57-8 Kurdistan, 21, 23, 30, 32-4, 71-5, 88, 99-100, 103, 121, 125-6, 132, 154, 169, 171,184

machine gun, 3-4, 67, 74, 85, 108-9, 116-17, 125, 127-9, 153, 158, 161, 191, 201, 203 Mad Mullah, see Mohammad bin Abdulla Hassan Maffrey, John, 55-6, 110 Mahdism, 55, 59,115 Mahmud, Sheikh, 30, 32, 119, 123, 126, 145, 155 Mahsuds, 6, 10, 11-13, 47-8, 74, 120, 125, 168-9, 170 Mameluks, 2 Mexican Civil Wars (1913-15), 5 Middle Eastern Department, 24 Milner, Alfred, 14, 24 Ministry of Defence, 29 Mohammed bin Abdulla Hassan, 1314, 16 Mohmands, 9, 48 Morocco, 160, 184-9, 196, 209 Mosul, 19, 23-4, 26, 28, 30-5,37, 102, 117,212 muskets, 2-3 Mussolini, Benito, 197-8,200,202,206, 209 Napoleon, 2, 84, 90 Navigation, 146-7 Neidpath, James, 79 Newall, Cyril, 49 Norman-Newell report, 58

[258]

INDEX

North West Frontier, 11-13,39,47-50, 59,86, 88,90,96,99,102,104,117, 119-21,123,127-8,132,155-7,160, 162 an d see India: Indian Army Nuer, 54, 56, 85-8, 101, 114-16, 118, 123,127,132,153,156-7,159,1612 oil, 20, 38 Palestine, 24, 27, 39, 43-7, 59, 68, 72, 74-5, 82, 123-4, 137, 142, 158, 162, 182, 210, 213-14 Palestine Gendarmerie, 45,66-8 Paret, Peter, 64 Parliament, 33 Passfield Committee, 45 Pathans, 11, 89, 167 Peirse, Richard, 46 Peshawar, 47, 49 Plumer, Lord, 44-5, 67 Punjab, 11, 48, 89, 150 Quetta Conference (1922), 110,158 quinine, 3 radio, 71, 75, 138 railways, 4, 85, 90-1, 135 Ranger, T. O., 27, 113-14 Rawlinson, Henry, 15, 18, 48, 154 Regia Aeronautica, 197-8, 202, 205-7 religious responses to air power, 10, 114-16 resistance to air attack, 12, 16-17, 42, 122-33,189,201,205,208,211,214 acquisition of weapons, 129-33,205 definition, 122 effectiveness, 123-5, 205 ghooly chits, 128 mutilation, 126-8, 204 prisoners, 126-8 raids on airfields, 128 Rif war in Morocco. 184-9 riots, 41, 44, 67-8, 72, 144, 158, 161 Royal Flying Corps, 7, 54 Royal Irish Constabulary, 42, 66 Royal Naval Air Service, 7,61

Royal Navy, 20, 80-1, 187, 211 Salisbury Committee (1923), 33-4 Salmond, John, 15, 18, 31-2, 47, 63, 110-12,140,143,146,152,156,161, 163, 174-5 SamoriTure, 117,128-9 Samuel, Herbert, 28, 44-5, 67 Sanussi, 198-9 Singapore, 76-80, 82,101, 136,139-40 Slave Trade, 76, 80-2 Slugett, Peter, 19 Slessor, John, 49, 57, 167 Smith, Malcolm, 134, 140 Smuts Committee (1917), 7,16 Somali Camel Corps, 14, 16 Somali Field Force, 15 Somaliland, British, 6,13-16,24-5,39, 54, 59, 101 Somaliland, Italian, 202 South Africa, 95, 184, 214 Spanish Air Force, 185 Special Service Officers, 157 Squadrons 8 Squadron, 101 45 Squadron, 154 47 Squadron, 101 55 Squadron, 125 70 Squadron, 136 'Z' Squadron, 14 Stark, Freya, 97,173 steamships, 3, 80, 85 strikes, 37, 40-1 Sudan, 24, 39, 54-6, 71, 85-8, 95, 96, 101-2,106,109-10,114-16,123,127, 141,143,153,156-7,159,161,170, 181 sudd, 86-8, 96, 102, 118 Sulaymaniyah, 30, 32, 72 Suwayda, siege of, 189,191-3 Syria, 27, 159, 184, 189-96 tanks, 61, 191 Thailand, 5-6 Tim es, The, 23,40-1,171 Townshend, Charles, 42,64 Transjordan, 24,27-8,39, 59,61,68-9,

[25S>]

INDEX

74, 90-2, 100, 119, 159, 201, 208, 212 Transjordan Frontier Force, 44,67 Treasury, 28-9,34,39,51,54-5,59,90 an d see expenditure Trenchard, Hugh and Aden, 51 and Admiralty, 76 and air control scheme, 16,21-3,60 and air routes, 136 appointment as CAS, 25 and army cooperation, 71 biography, 15 and bombing policy, 176 and Cairo Conference (1921), 25 and Colwyn Committee (1925), 36 confidence in air control, 26,29,33 doctrine, 148 doubts about future, 31 and East Africa, 57 and Egypt, 54 euphemistic language, 163 in House of Lords, 94,170 and India, 48-9 and Ireland, 43 and Labour government, 174 and Lionel Charlton, 175 opinion of Samuel Hoare, 31 and policing in Britain, 41 political ability, 36,109,161 quotations from 18,31,34,41,50-1, 62, 67, 76, 78-9, 148, 154, 163, 170

and Red Sea, 81 resignation, 59 and Singapore, 76-9 and Somaliland, 54 and strikes in Britain, 40 and Sudan, 54-6 and technology, 139-40 turbulent air, 9-10, 17 tyres, 144 Wahabis, 91,112-3,126,128,159,170 an d see Ikhwan Waldie, Derek, 70-1, 75 War Office, 14,15,22,26,28-30,32-3, 35,38,44-6,51-2,57-8,62,70,76-7, 82, 139,177,179,182,211 Washington Naval Conference, 178 Waziristan, 12,25,47, 73-4,94,124-5, 127, 166 Wazirs, 11-12, 125, 170 Wilson, Arnold, 19, 23, 25, 26 Wilson, Henry, 14, 18, 22, 28, 34, 37, 61, 70, 135, 160, 164 women and children, 164-5,168-9,200 Worthington-Evans, Laming, 26, 29, 35,37, 62, 164 Wright brothers, 5 Yemen, 11, 50-2 an d see Imam of Yemen Zeppelins, 6 an d see airships

[2 6 0 ]